An editor gave an advice for the aspiring writer once: read more books.

—Will it help?

—Sure. The moore time you spend reading the less time you will have for writing crap.

That's not the reason though. Writing crap is actually what makes you write awesome stuff. Reading is a way to see what other people do and learn from their crap and awesome stuff, if you take the opportunity to really take things in beside the story it contains.