Reading & Writing...

Today, while walking, I was thinking about authors who suggest they are voracious readers even while writing.  My experience is, if I am trying to write something substantive, I cannot be reading a book.  For a writing to feel "good" to me, it has to have a raw, organic kind of feeling.  When I am reading and writing, my writings seem to have the quality of those '50's - 60's TV dinners, complete with aluminum foil wrappings.  (Are those TV dinners still around, btw?)