Create more, consume less.

I recently heard a quote from and interview with The Minimalists on NPR's On Point: "create more, consume less."  And I'm starting to wonder how true it really is.  While certainly an inspiring quote, it's rather vague.  Taken under different contexts it can mean a myriad of things. For example, this week my husband took out the recycling bin but not the garbage bin because the latter was nearly empty. (Huzzah for cloth diapers!) We consumed less and created less (trash). And in that sense creating less is positive.

Okay, so creating trash is bad. Let's look at an example of creating something good.  As a nursing mother, I create milk for my baby.  The flip side to that is I have to consume more calories...seriously, I think I'm hungrier now that when I was preggers. (To be honest, I have baby amnesia, so I can't be sure that last statement's true.) Anyway, in the case of milk production one must consume more in order to create more.

And I think the same is true for writing. Some of the best writing advice I've ever gotten is to read--read what you love, read across genres, just read. So consuming more books seems to lead to creating more books. Likewise, as I talked about in my last blog post, what helps me write is to consume experiences. So I say to writers and readers alike: Consume more (books), Create more (books)!  But make sure to get some sleep in there somewhere.