What We Can Learn from Art Garfunkel

I was intrigued to read in Terry Whalin's blog "The Writing Life" that Art Garfunkel was not only an avid reader, but a meticulous record-keeper of each book he has read, according to the New Yorker article "The King of Reading" by Nick Paumgarten. Whalin suggests that this would be a good habit for writers to pick up and I couldn't agree more. Great books are a wonderful resource. Find a notebook you can use and allow yourself a page at least for each book. After each chapter write a quick summary and anything you found particularly memorable, good or bad. When you're finished you'll have a plot outline that you can study and a few examples of effective writing. If you keep it up, you'll have a notebook full of plot outlines that can help you structure your own book. I like the idea so much, I think I'll try it myself. (I put a clip of Whalin's post in the left-hand column. From there you can click to the New Yorker article, if you are interested)