Slow
Various people around whose blogs I lurk have posted lists of their ten favourite books of 2005.
I'm not going to do this. Firstly because it would show me up for the shallow consumer of hackery that I am, and secondly because thinking about it made me realise just how few books I have read recently.
I used to be one of those writers who would hardly read at all when they were creating a new work. Not, I hasten to add, because I was worried that I might be influenced by the style of whoever I was reading. As a more successful writer than me wrote recently, not reading whilst you are in the process of writing a novel is a bit like refusing to listen to anyone speaking french whilst you try to learn the language.
Reading is vital, and trying to read a broad spectrum of genres and styles is even more vital. And it's important to read contemporary works as well as the classics. Books published in the last year or so are your best indicator of what is the current accepted literary style. I wouldn't suggest slavishly following the path beaten down by others, but it makes sense to know what's out there, what people are doing, what people are reading and what publishers (who may or may not fall under the heading 'people') are buying.
Mr Stuart, kind fellow that he is, has introduced me to the world of crime/mystery fiction (call it what you will). Before Cold Granite (which I first read in 2003 - hah!), my only experience of the genre was Ian Rankin. Now I can add a few more names to that list, and look at story-telling in a different way.
Mostly I read fantasy and SF novels (I know, it's terribly sad), with the occasional contemporary 'literary' novel thrown in to see what all the Booker fuss is about. I read some poetry (sorry Vincent), and a few plays - but mostly because they've been written by my brother and sister-in-law. I'm not much into biography, but I've read a few interesting histories this year, and occasionally my father will push a travel book my way. And I still read about fifteen comics every month, even though I've not written any comic scripts in a while.
All of which sounds like a lot of books. But it doesn't look like it when I add them up. And I think I know what the problem is.
I read very slowly.
I never used to. Time was I'd have four or five titles on the go at once and I'd dip into them whenever a spare moment presented itself. But when I started to get serious about the writing, I developed a bizarre mental block which said that any time I wasn't actually typing at my keyboard was wasted time. Reading got pushed back to a few chapters a night, in bed, before lights out. Something to settle my brain from the feverish activity of the day.
And in many ways I'm still stuck in that rut. It's a bit like the childhood conditioning that makes me feel guilty for being indoors when it's sunny outside. If I settle down into an armchair with a paperback and a dachshund, a little white angel appears on my right shoulder and starts telling me that I'm wasting precious writing time. It's not very helpful when a little red devil appears on my left shoulder and tells me I'd rather be watching telly.
Then when I do read something, I go all analytical, my hand twitching for the red pen. I've noticed it in the novel I'm reading at the moment - the narrative flow is interrupted by the author's refusal to use contractions (it is, instead of it's and so on.) It's something Mr Stuart pointed out to me in my own writing and now I notice it everywhere else.
So since Christmas I've only managed to read* Thud! by Terry Pratchett and half of Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds**. When I set up the right hand menu bar on this blog with my word of the day, sheep of the week and recommendations of music and books, I had this wild idea I could post two new titles each week. If I'm lucky I might manage two a month. Unless, of course, I cheat.***
* not including endless re-reads of various novels-in-progress. That doesn't count.
** apologies to Mr Reynolds. It is a fine book indeed, just my editing brain playing silly-buggers.
*** or somebody starts paying me to read books, in which case - bring 'em on, baby!
I'm not going to do this. Firstly because it would show me up for the shallow consumer of hackery that I am, and secondly because thinking about it made me realise just how few books I have read recently.
I used to be one of those writers who would hardly read at all when they were creating a new work. Not, I hasten to add, because I was worried that I might be influenced by the style of whoever I was reading. As a more successful writer than me wrote recently, not reading whilst you are in the process of writing a novel is a bit like refusing to listen to anyone speaking french whilst you try to learn the language.
Reading is vital, and trying to read a broad spectrum of genres and styles is even more vital. And it's important to read contemporary works as well as the classics. Books published in the last year or so are your best indicator of what is the current accepted literary style. I wouldn't suggest slavishly following the path beaten down by others, but it makes sense to know what's out there, what people are doing, what people are reading and what publishers (who may or may not fall under the heading 'people') are buying.
Mr Stuart, kind fellow that he is, has introduced me to the world of crime/mystery fiction (call it what you will). Before Cold Granite (which I first read in 2003 - hah!), my only experience of the genre was Ian Rankin. Now I can add a few more names to that list, and look at story-telling in a different way.
Mostly I read fantasy and SF novels (I know, it's terribly sad), with the occasional contemporary 'literary' novel thrown in to see what all the Booker fuss is about. I read some poetry (sorry Vincent), and a few plays - but mostly because they've been written by my brother and sister-in-law. I'm not much into biography, but I've read a few interesting histories this year, and occasionally my father will push a travel book my way. And I still read about fifteen comics every month, even though I've not written any comic scripts in a while.
All of which sounds like a lot of books. But it doesn't look like it when I add them up. And I think I know what the problem is.
I read very slowly.
I never used to. Time was I'd have four or five titles on the go at once and I'd dip into them whenever a spare moment presented itself. But when I started to get serious about the writing, I developed a bizarre mental block which said that any time I wasn't actually typing at my keyboard was wasted time. Reading got pushed back to a few chapters a night, in bed, before lights out. Something to settle my brain from the feverish activity of the day.
And in many ways I'm still stuck in that rut. It's a bit like the childhood conditioning that makes me feel guilty for being indoors when it's sunny outside. If I settle down into an armchair with a paperback and a dachshund, a little white angel appears on my right shoulder and starts telling me that I'm wasting precious writing time. It's not very helpful when a little red devil appears on my left shoulder and tells me I'd rather be watching telly.
Then when I do read something, I go all analytical, my hand twitching for the red pen. I've noticed it in the novel I'm reading at the moment - the narrative flow is interrupted by the author's refusal to use contractions (it is, instead of it's and so on.) It's something Mr Stuart pointed out to me in my own writing and now I notice it everywhere else.
So since Christmas I've only managed to read* Thud! by Terry Pratchett and half of Century Rain by Alastair Reynolds**. When I set up the right hand menu bar on this blog with my word of the day, sheep of the week and recommendations of music and books, I had this wild idea I could post two new titles each week. If I'm lucky I might manage two a month. Unless, of course, I cheat.***
* not including endless re-reads of various novels-in-progress. That doesn't count.
** apologies to Mr Reynolds. It is a fine book indeed, just my editing brain playing silly-buggers.
*** or somebody starts paying me to read books, in which case - bring 'em on, baby!
Comments
I mean, not simultaneously, but... oh, well, never mind.
I think at first, it was good to keep a clear head and not be influenced by other ideas or techniques.
Now its no problem, and I think that comes with finding your voice.
But there isn't enough crime in your life, obviously. Nothing like a little murder or two to brighten your day. (And I'd gladly let you read my manuscript, just for the torture value if you want. But you don't have an email address that I know. So I can't harass you about it.)
In a way, reading is really a form of writing I guess too, you create your own reading, write essentially your own reading of the book as you take it in because while the words are someone elses, the images and emotions and reations and hopes and fears for characters etc all depend on you.
I would tend to say from whatever experience I have, that the time when reading takes away from write, especially when writing a longer piece is before your have found the right voice for the piece, or style, then the work of a powerful writer can affect your quite strongly, but that may not be a bad thing, if you can take the time to see your own writing and recognise the other voice influencing and shaping it, eventually your voice will always come through if you work at it.
As to the little angel sitting talking on the shoulder, I never get that when reading, which I consider to be part of parcel of exposing me to words, to viewpoints to ideas, to the use of language, and thus contributing to the writing process. But I do however need one of those to sit on my shoulder and tell me to stop playing world of warcraft, an online computer game, when I should be writing or reading or doing something else other that fighting orcs and monsters :)
I’m guessing we've all picked up books that have taken us a bit to get into, where we've had to get used to the writer's way of constructing sentences. We've had to changed the way we think about the order of words in order to not tear the book up into a thousand little pieces and hurl them down the toilet.
And I think that's bound to change to the way you write. Even if you don't notice it. It'll still be there, waiting for you to edit it out again. But then again, maybe it’s just me – I tend to pick up other people’s accents too.
What stops me writing are things like TV, World of Warcraft and Football Manager 2006. Insidious things, I've had to ban myself from them and their ilk to get anything done on my book.
I too have finished Thud! since Christmas, which was fun. And now I'm on Foucault's Pendulum, which I don't understand.
Oh, and your apology for the poetry is duly noted.
Holy crap! It's a miracle!
And apologize James. Now that we both know your email address isn't frickin' well out there to be found! I'm a damn good detective - I knew that before you did and you're the one that removed it!
You are a fine detective, and no doubt a fine writer of detective fiction as well.
Grovel, grovel.
I guess that makes me a philistine in this esteemed company.