The Other Side of Writing

It stands to reason that in order to write well one must read well. Read extensively, that is. Read a variety of literature. Yes, I love teen novels filled with angst and suspense. But I also love my classics (Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, The Witch of Blackbird Pond), poetry (Margaret Atwood, Theodore Roethke, TS Eliot), thrillers (Vince Flynn novels) and adore my British cozies. And let's not forget that my bedside table is stacked with original pulp fiction.

The danger of reading all the same stuff all the time is that you will begin to write just like everyone you are reading.

It's kind of like leaving New York to go live in Texas for ten years. Eventually you will begin to sound like the natives.

The voices of the writers you read seep into you.

Expose yourself to something different every so often.

Even if you have to push your way through it and it feels like torture. (Yes, I know, that means I have to finish A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius or else I shall be a hypocrite).

So today, I have written nothing and have been both pushing myself through Eclipse and finding myself, at odd intervals, racing through it.

Unplug and read.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Arrogance

My first book review will be a short one, namely because I have not managed to torture myself through completing the introduction to said book.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers looked like a book with promise. Unfortunately the writing (just in the introduction) is so pompous that I have yet to waste my time finishing the rest of the book. Eggers likes his $10 words and the sound of his own voice in his head and relishes the processes of his own mind, just a wee bit too much.

Heartbreaking? Yes, I shouldn't have spent money on it. It is a definite library read, like a movie you wait to get on DVD instead of going to the theater to see it.

Staggering? Indeed, in it's arrogance.

Genius....doubtful.

We'll see.

But, that's just my review of the introduction.

One of these days, when I have nothing better to do, maybe I will waste my time finishing it. It will not be done out of curiosity but out of the simple, practical fact that I spent money on that book and I'm going to read it.

Horror. I am NOT looking forward to it.