This summer I’ve been spending a ridiculous amount of time playing chauffeur to my kids and then waiting for them to engage in the activity du jour. Luckily, I’ve become a Kindle convert and my phone is always ready to pony up a book. I am an unapologetically voracious reader, and my tastes don’t limit themselves to SFF, though it is my favorite. What’s that axiom? Read your genre read, read widely. There’s a lot of truth to that, but I didn’t always feel that way.
When I first started writing seriously I eschewed all forms of creativity other than my own. Nuts to the axiom and to anything else people said about the subject. It was nonsense.
Why? I dunno. I think my rationale was something about not wanting to be influenced by other people’s work, or some such malarkey. And for a while, it worked, I mean, I got words on the page, but nowhere with agents and publishers.
What the heck? Yeah, to say I was irritated would be a serious understatement. But what did all those other books have that mine didn’t? And so, after a considerable dry spell, I picked up the science fiction book du jour, The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin.
Oh. Ohhhh…
Yeah, it was pretty eye-opening. Why? Whelp, head on over to DIY MFA to find out. The article details my reasoning to read widely as well as read your genre, and it gives a bunch of links to some of the books I’ve really enjoyed this summer whilst withering away during my kids’ extracurricular activities. To get the low down on that bit of sunshine, the rest of the shenanigans going on in the Nevermore household, and info on all my new releases, sign up for my newsletter! The form’s on the right, so what are you waiting for?
