Patti Abbott's blog post http://pattinase.blogspot.com/2010/04/re-how-we-choose-which-crime-fiction-to.html this past week about how we choose what we read and what influenced us set me to thinking, but Scott Parker's post at Do Some Damage this morning http://dosomedamage.blogspot.com/2010/04/books-as-time-machines-for-nostalgia.html really brought my thoughts about reading and writing full circle.
I've been a reader for as long as I can remember, but until I was an adult my choice of reading material was limited to whatever I found, wherever I was because the nearest library was twenty five miles away and there was no extra money for the luxury of books. At home, the bookcase was full of old books that belonged to my mother. I read "Lust for Life", "Gone With the Wind", and "Jane Eyre" and dozens of other books who's titles escape me, but the subject matter, I remember. One book was about training the first seeing-eye dogs and another was about the persecution of the Jews in this country after the war. The only children's book I remember reading was a big volume that contained all the "Grimms Fairy Tales", "Black Beauty" and "Peter Pan".
Visiting relatives was always a great place to find reading material. My grandmother kept old school books at her house with stories about Indian legends and there was always the comic books that Aunt Bev left there for us to read. Yeah, there was Superman, Batman, The Crypt Keeper, GI Joe and even some romance comics. My Aunt Sally had all boys, so I was introduced to the Hardy Boys when I visited her home. My cousin, Vivian had a whole closet of full of paperbacks and I remember spending one weekend with "Gidget". At my Aunt Bev's house there was a whole bookcase of Reader's Digest's Condensed. I remember reading "Up the Down Staircase" there and marveling at how the story unfolded in such an odd manner.
I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I entered the high school library the first time! So many books to choose from. From Walter Farley's Black Stallion series to a biography of Carrie Nation, I tried to read them all. One of the books I remember most fondly was "Here, Keller, Train This!". All these years and the memory of that book still makes me smile.
As I let my mind wander over all the books I've read and the places where I found them, it suddenly struck me why I can't stick to one genre when I'm writing. My reading has been so diverse that everything creeps into my stories. And truth be told, I love that! I love that both my reading and my family have shaped not only my reading habits but how I think and write stories.
6 comments:
"My reading has been so diverse that everything creeps into my stories." Amen! That's why I wrote my soon-to-be-published State of the Write journal entry. I'm pulled in so many directions that I'll likely not become really good at any genre but pretty good at a lot. And I'm okay with that. Glad you enjoyed my reading post.
I don't believe that my reading habits influenced my writing as far as I can tell (but I'm sure others will tell me), but I was a voracious reader while growing up.
I read anything and everything I could get my hands on, which because of the non-social life I had while growing up, became my true escapism from life.
I still read, but not as heavy as I used to.
I know how you feel, Scott! I hate trying to force a story into a genre box when I know it wants to run wild. :-)
One of the "rules" that's pounded into beginning writers, G, is read what you want to write. For me, I get bored reading the same type over and over and my writing tends to travel the same path as I'm sure your's does. Much as we hate to admit it, everything we read, or even do, is reflected in our writing. Even if only a sentence or two in a story.
Probably every since I've been at Xavier I've bought hundreds of books a year and thus I always have a pretty good pile of stuff to pick from. I pick whatever strikes my fancy at the moment. At least most o fthe time.
I'm also an eclectic reader, which I think shows up in my short stories. While I read (and write) more mysteries/thrillers than anything else, I find some storied demand to be fantasy or "literary."
If I try to make them something else, all I end up with is a lousy story.
I think that's the most important part about writing, James, follow the story wherever it takes you!
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