In Iceland, they say that everyone ad ganga med bok I maganum – we’re all “carrying a book in our stomach.” In other words, everyone has a book inside them, and everyone’s a future author of that book (and perhaps others). As a country, Iceland has the most authors per capita, and it’s also a country that knows the importance of reading. After all, the storytelling tradition there goes back to the great Icelandic sagas that were passed down by word of mouth from the 9th century and first written down in the 13th century, and the literary history of the island is rich and widely appreciated around the world.

The people of Iceland love their books. The National and University Library of Iceland in Reykjavík has more than one million items in its collection, and new bookstores are opening all over the country. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why there are so many authors: it’s because there are so many readers. One of the best ways to become a better writer is by reading good literature written by other people. You’ll expand your vocabulary, learn new ways of phrasing things, and get ideas that will help you express yourself and bring out the book that you’ve always felt you could write.

Part of speed reading is fluency and ease; your ability to read smoothly and quickly will help you read faster, and that same speed will translate to your writing. Speed reading teaches you how to eliminate the habits that get in your way and slow you down, and those same habits can also prevent you from letting your creative writing flow onto the page. Learn to speed read, and you’ll have more time to read widely and get exposure to the best writers in the world, and then you’ll be ready to launch your own writing career, whether that’s one book or many.