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books and influences
Dec. 1st, 2006 11:17 pm1500 words in two days! Not a ton, but more than I've done lately. And the story is coming alive as I write. Love that feeling.
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melissa_writing post about writing influences made me think of all kinds of books/writers who have brought me to where I am right now. It was way too long for a reply, but maybe it will make a nice post for today (and I don't know how to link to her blog--if anyone cares to share this simple tidbit with me, I'm interested).
Earliest read-to-me stories were Bible stories and fairy tales. Then lovely language picture books like Seuss, Al Perkins, Sendak, etc. My mom loved to read aloud, and so even when I was quite old enough to read on my own, we'd have afternoons where she'd read us the Boxcar Children, or Roald Dahl, or Robb White (The Lion's Paw). Still when I'm sick I want someone to read stories to me. She liked mysteries, so we read a lot of those, and later I discovered Dorothy Sayers.
I was conscious from pretty early on that authors and illustrators did a job. I was probably in second grade when I learned that Carolyne Keene wasn't a real person, just a front made up by a packager. It was akin to discovering Santa wasn't real. But Madeleine L'Engle WAS real, and I loved her books as well as those by Lloyd Alexander, E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, Robin McKinley, etc. More fairy tales, only bigger this time. Now I read Harry Potter, Shannon Hale, Stephenie Meyer, Terry Pratchett, Patricia Wrede, Connie Willis, and Diana Wynne Jones. I prefer real people with interesting, magical things happening to them to high-fantasy, let's-be-Tolkein-again, world-building-over-character-development books. (Not that I dislike high fantasy, per se--just derivative high fantasy.) I HATED books that were All About My Changing Body (with nothing else happening), or Poor Me, I'm Unpopular and My Feet Stink (again, with no accompanying magic or mystery). I wanted something exotic yet real, and I wanted my characters to DO something! Not that the books HAVE to have magic--but they have to have SOMETHING. Some real emotion, and some change. Recent books to touch me in some way include Rules, by Cynthia Lord, and The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Not magic, but still pretty powerful.
The other thing we had in the house was the National Geographic; my mom had a fascination for archaeology/anthropology, and I went through stages of reading things by Mary Leakey and co., and Thor Heyerdahl.
I read a lot of classics in middle school and later in college--Brontes, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Gogol, Tolstoy. I preferred the classics with layers and feelings I could understand over the ones imposed "because they're classics!"
I love history and magic and layered character feelings, and I find it all worms its way in somehow. So far I've written a time travel mystery and have WIPs with elements of fairy tales (only, made more solid) and mythology. I don't think I could write a straight contemporary story if I stared at the computer screen for a hundred years.
There are lots more books, but if I don't sleep I won't be able to write tomorrow.
melissa_writing post about writing influences made me think of all kinds of books/writers who have brought me to where I am right now. It was way too long for a reply, but maybe it will make a nice post for today (and I don't know how to link to her blog--if anyone cares to share this simple tidbit with me, I'm interested). Earliest read-to-me stories were Bible stories and fairy tales. Then lovely language picture books like Seuss, Al Perkins, Sendak, etc. My mom loved to read aloud, and so even when I was quite old enough to read on my own, we'd have afternoons where she'd read us the Boxcar Children, or Roald Dahl, or Robb White (The Lion's Paw). Still when I'm sick I want someone to read stories to me. She liked mysteries, so we read a lot of those, and later I discovered Dorothy Sayers.
I was conscious from pretty early on that authors and illustrators did a job. I was probably in second grade when I learned that Carolyne Keene wasn't a real person, just a front made up by a packager. It was akin to discovering Santa wasn't real. But Madeleine L'Engle WAS real, and I loved her books as well as those by Lloyd Alexander, E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis, Robin McKinley, etc. More fairy tales, only bigger this time. Now I read Harry Potter, Shannon Hale, Stephenie Meyer, Terry Pratchett, Patricia Wrede, Connie Willis, and Diana Wynne Jones. I prefer real people with interesting, magical things happening to them to high-fantasy, let's-be-Tolkein-again, world-building-over-character-development books. (Not that I dislike high fantasy, per se--just derivative high fantasy.) I HATED books that were All About My Changing Body (with nothing else happening), or Poor Me, I'm Unpopular and My Feet Stink (again, with no accompanying magic or mystery). I wanted something exotic yet real, and I wanted my characters to DO something! Not that the books HAVE to have magic--but they have to have SOMETHING. Some real emotion, and some change. Recent books to touch me in some way include Rules, by Cynthia Lord, and The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. Not magic, but still pretty powerful.
The other thing we had in the house was the National Geographic; my mom had a fascination for archaeology/anthropology, and I went through stages of reading things by Mary Leakey and co., and Thor Heyerdahl.
I read a lot of classics in middle school and later in college--Brontes, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Gogol, Tolstoy. I preferred the classics with layers and feelings I could understand over the ones imposed "because they're classics!"
I love history and magic and layered character feelings, and I find it all worms its way in somehow. So far I've written a time travel mystery and have WIPs with elements of fairy tales (only, made more solid) and mythology. I don't think I could write a straight contemporary story if I stared at the computer screen for a hundred years.
There are lots more books, but if I don't sleep I won't be able to write tomorrow.
