jules_thorpe

Aha, it's finally finished! I have at least filled in the expanded character questionnaire that I created for Joel Richler. Be warned, it's really very long.

NaNo starts tomorrow. I'm slightly excited but pretty nervous! My plan is to work on wordcount first on NaNo days and then do questionnaire stuff afterwards, so hopefully that will work out, though this took me many days even without writing words too.

Danny will be up next. (Finally!)

( Questions and answers )

So I am (more patchily than I'd like, but still) generally someone who really likes to read books. I mean, if I weren't, I wouldn't be much of a writer. There's only a limited amount of skill you can gain as a writer if you don't also read, and read voraciously.

The thing is this - I've been writing the current novel since... February. It's now October. And I've been mostly staying away from reading long-form fiction while I've been in the writing process. My sense is that I'd turn into a style sponge: I'd read a Jasper Fforde and find myself writing like my book is a Thursday Next book, or I'd read a Stephen King and writer a chapter that mimicked the Dark Tower.

This would be... odd and bad.

I've been reading short-form stuff, mostly fan fiction, but nothing longer than a few thousand words. I'm not even sure if it's a sensible distinction to make, because I've been getting into bunches of new televised canons, and I find those worlds as absorbing as the world of a book. So I'm not sure if abstaining from novel-reading even makes sense.

And I am missing being a reader. I have a lot of stuff on my to-read pile and I'd like to read it someday. And in any case, I'm really struggling with the novel - I'm probably writing only a couple of thousand words a week, if that, because the bit I'm writing right now is full of difficult emotional stuff. (Damn you, plot.)

So what do people think? Is reading novels while you're writing a heinous crime against your own book? Is it essential? I have no idea.

I would love to hear everyone's thoughts.