Book Buying Moratorium

Here's the thing.
I love the idea of a TBR list, but seriously....I'm an emotional reader, a mood-reader. So having a stack of books that must be read in a certain order just isn't going to work and it wouldn't be fair to the books I'm reading, because I'll resent them.
It has occurred to me that my shelves, both physical and digital, are full of books that I purchased or was given but have not read. There are enough of them to offer the requisite diversity to keep me from getting edgy or resentful.
It might very nearly kill me and I will have to avoid the used bookstore like it's that girl I went to high school with who is fresh-faced as she drops her kids off at school at 7:30 in the morning and is still thin as a stick... Small-town life is a constant high school reunion, but I digress.
No more book buying until I read all these dang books.
A sample of the list around me:
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (started, didn't finish, guess I will)
Water for Elephants
Shinju
The Likeness
Fallen
Vintage Affair
Galway Bay
The Yellow House
Bitterroot Crossing
Hideaway - Koontz
all of my Charlaine Harris and Vince Flynn books....


Sigh, this could take awhile.

My Actual For Real Bookshelves

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.