You Write What You Read

I've been busy this month scratching the aforementioned writing itch. I spent June outlining and preparing for Camp NaNoWriMo (more on that here), but there is no way to fully prepare for the madness that is attempting a 50,000 word manuscript in one month. I'm currently going for 80,000. Clearly, I am a masochist.

Because this lofty goal is not enough for my poor, stress-starved mind, I'm also trying to read George R. R. Martin's A Dance With Dragons. Whenever I feel that my prose is halted or my motivation is wilted, I reach for the epic fantasy tome. When my genius goes out for pizza, it comes home to find me huddled in a corner over my dying e-reader, desperately trying to plug it in.

Reading is important for a writer. Skim any advice article on writing and, somewhere, you will find that old gem: Read. So, I read. Writing is my craft, and reading informs that craft. Perhaps too much.

There is a lot to be said about imitation in art - it's the best flattery, you copy the masters, you learn the rules of others before you break them for yourself. However, imitation can be an insidious beast that sneaks up on one unawares.

In A Song of Ice and Fire, I found a series to love again. My last love died with Robert Jordan in 2007, and I truly thought I could never repeat the magic again. So I was skeptical as I picked up Game of Thrones, but I was hooked by page two.

I could find no fault with Martin's writing - that is, until I started writing like him. Martin, it turns out, has a bad habit: itemization. His characters walk into a room and we get a list of furniture. They meet a new character and we get a list of physical characteristics from clothes to hair to general facial expression. His characters eat and we get the menu. I have yet to read a chapter of Dance without getting hungry.

Looking over my more recent work, I've found that every meal is suddenly listed. At the beginning of my manuscript, they ate "lunch" and "dinner." Now my characters eat "hunks of warm bread glistening with butter" and "a thick herb and potato stew with chunks of ham and onion." Clearly, my writing has been contaminated.

It's easy to let better work bleed into our shitty first drafts, but I don't think it's anything to worry about. If anything, this has taught me that even my most sacrosanct idols have flaws in their writing  I just can't always see them until they're under the critical eye of my own inner editor.

Still, watch what you read and remember that if you find yourself drowning in lists, there is always draft two. As a writer, reading is crucial; but just as we are what we eat, we write what we read.