Hello, and welcome to number thirteen in my ongoing series of essays on the art and craft of writing. There will eventually be fifty essays in this series, all of them based on my fifty thoughts on writing. The fifty thoughts comprise everything I could think of to say on the topic in a single afternoon. I could probably come up with more -- I'm useful that way -- but I really think that fifty essays is more than enough for now. I respond well to bribery, so if there's anything you've really been hoping I'd go into, remember that candy corn and dead things are an excellent channel to my affections.

Here's our thought for the day:

Thoughts on Writing #13: Reading Outside the Box.

Today’s essay is going to be a little bit different, because today’s essay is going to be just as much about being a reader as it is about being a writer. Reading is an enormously important part of writing. The temptation to say ‘oh, I can’t take the time to read that, I’m a writer, I have to be writing’ is always going to be there. Most writers are essentially junkies; our drug of choice is putting words on paper. Cheaper than most of the things you can buy on the street, but very time-consuming, and like all junkies, we can get resistant to things that might get between us and our fix. Even when we do make the time to read, the temptation to say ‘I’m just going to stick with what I know I like’ is intensely high. It’s also intensely bad for us. So here’s what we’re going to discuss today:

Read outside your preferred genres. I'm an old-school horror girl. I love fantasy and funny genre fiction. I read more books on epidemics than anyone outside the CDC really needs to. But that won't make me grow, so I also read trashy crime thrillers and westerns, hard science fiction and romances, and pretty much anything with a plot that looks like it might hold my interest. Seeing what they're doing outside your comfort zone will help you understand what's inside your comfort zone much, much better.

Because our topic is a little less cut-and-dried than some of them, we’re going to be taking a slightly different format today, defining genres and discussing things that may qualify as ways to step outside of them. I’m also going to try to offer alternatives, in those cases where the genre is one that tends to alienate those it doesn’t embrace. Hopefully, you’ll be able to look at the options I offer and come up with a few options of your own.

Make sense? Excellent. Let’s begin.

( My thoughts are not your thoughts; my process is not your process; my ideas are not your ideas; my method is not your method. All these things are totally right for me, and may be just as totally wrong for you. So please don't stress if the things I'm saying don't apply to you -- I promise, there is no One True Way. This way for my thoughts on reading outside the genre, ways to find books outside your comfort zone, and a few possible places to start.Collapse )

Dear Great Pumpkin;

I have been a very good girl since last Halloween. I have given cookies and candy and cake to people who needed them. I have been kind to spiders. I have revered the pumpkin in all its forms. I have not drowned anyone in a well. I have not unleashed an army of the living dead, obedient to my every whim, and commanded them to destroy all that which might oppose me. Also, I have not called down the pandemic. So clearly, I have spent the entire year on my very best behavior.

This year, Great Pumpkin, I am asking for the following gifts:

* Awesome cover art. Please, Great Pumpkin, make sure that the cover art for Rosemary and Rue is made entirely of wonderful, and save me from the terrible specter of the bimbo on the cover of my book. (To quote the Bohnhoffs: “She is sultry, she is sexy, she is nowhere in the text, she is the bimbo on the cover of my book.”) I have great faith in my cover artist and my publisher, but it never hurts to plead for supernatural aid from the most superior of all squash.

* A fantastic convention season. I’m going to be the Music Guest of Honor at Duckon, Great Pumpkin, and Jim Butcher is going to be the Author Guest of Honor. Please help me to be the very best Disney Halloween Princess that I can possibly be, and smite those things which might attempt to oppose me. Please assist me in winning the hearts of all those who meet me, and all me to position myself well for a best-selling novel. Also, please make sure there’s edible food within walking distance of the convention hotel.

* The perfect kittens. My oldest cat is very old, Great Pumpkin, and in the interests of keeping my younger cat from going insane, I am in the market for Siamese kittens. I am looking for a chocolate and a lilac, both Classic, both with the sweet temper and massive size that I associate with the breed. They need to be sturdy, or Lilly will devour them while I sleep, and that will both make me sad and force me to go looking for new kittens. I don’t have time to go through this twice, so please help me get it right the first time.

* Quick, successful sale of the InCryptid series, wherein the various members of the Price family alternately protect and pummel cryptid ass for the sake of the ecological balance of the planet. If you give me this, Great Pumpkin, I promise to find a way to work you into the narrative, either as a benevolent protector of the pumpkin patch, or as a destroyer of the weak. The choice is entirely yours. Also, if you can, could you make sure the contract is for the first four? Because I really want an excuse to write them all.

* Happiness for my entire family, including my recently-married baby sister and her wife. I am very tired of people trying to say that my baby sister’s marriage is in some way dangerous, Great Pumpkin. She’s happy for the first time, and it’s wonderful to watch, and if anything, her joy is a testament to why people get married at all, not a sign of the marital apocalypse. Please make the stupid go away, Great Pumpkin, so we can all stay happy.

* An army of velociraptors, genetically-engineered to obey only my commands, and equipped with lasers on their forearms. I promise I will only use them to bring glory to your name, Great Pumpkin, and that I will leave enough of the world’s population alive to properly honor you on the next Halloween.

I remain your faithful Halloween girl,
Seanan.