Reversing My Position

I used to be a strong advocate of not reading while writing. I was adamant about a little term I coined - something I called "voice bleeding." I fiercely believed that if I indulged myself in reading the same genre I was writing that I opened myself up to the voice of the other author leaking into whatever ms I was working on.

And, to be fair, I still think that's a possibility.

But you'll notice that the blog post I link to above is from 2011. Now, I've got four more years of experience under my belt, four years where I've been writing professionally, and four years of balancing simultaneous projects while still working full time as a librarian. And to be a good librarian you have to be aware of the market, aware of content, and aware of your collection in order to make good recommendations to your patrons.

And to do that, you have to be reading.

I want to be good at both of my jobs, so I decided I was going to be reading while writing. There was no way around it. At first I stuck to my old decree that reading nonfiction was non-damaging to my creative voice, and while I still think that's true, it also severely limits my reading choices.

So I went a different route and decided to read the opposite genre of whatever I was writing. That definitely worked, until I came up against a book I really wanted to read right now that happened to also be a dark contemporary. It was GONE GIRL by Gillian Flynn and yes, I'm glad I just went ahead and read it.

Ironically, I found that reading the same genre I was writing didn't stymie me so much as inspire me. I'd read a few chapters and find myself burning to write, instead of having to put down the book I was reading and force my brain to jump tracks over to the genre I was writing. There was less of a lag, and instead of invading my creativity I felt like reading was bolstering it, challenging me to answer with my own voice and words.

I finished up the first draft of my dark contemporary, tentatively titled THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, last week. It's out to crit partners right now, and while I'm waiting for it to come back to me I've got to switch projects and focus on GIVEN TO THE SEA, the first in my epic fantasy series due out in 2017.

How to best make that move?

I think I'll ease into it by reading some fantasy.

The Fallacy of Competition

In high school it was who had better clothes, better hair, a cooler car, the hottest boyfriend.

I couldn't wait to exit the rat race, but life is life and people are people. No matter what age, we will compare ourselves to one another. And most of the time we're the ones that come up wanting, by our own estimation.

There a million ways to shortchange yourself as a writer. There's always someone with more marketing dollars, someone who got a better deal, a cover that you covet, a tour you didn't get to go on. We can check our Amazon ratings against someone else, compare shelf-adds on Goodreads -- and that's without mentioning reviews.

It's very easy to go down this rabbit hole. A writer can't use any social media without being highly aware of a book other than theirs that is getting a lot of attention.

And that's fine.

As a librarian I can say that there are plenty of reluctant readers that need one particular book to flick the switch in their brain that turns reading from a chore into a joy. It only takes one to change their minds - and if it's not mine, that's okay. The one book that turns them into a reader has done a service. Once the transformation from non-reader to reader takes place, there's always the option that mine might be picked up next.

Writers need to be aware of that when we feel a little stab of jealousy when massive exposure is being doled out - and not always in our direction. The book that's plastered everywhere may not be ours, but it's creating hundreds - possibly thousands - of readers.

And that's a wider potential audience for everyone.

How To Do A School Visit Without Psychologically Damaging Yourself

The thing about being an author is that most of us are a little off in one way or another. Maybe we talk too loud, or too quietly. Maybe our hair isn't quite right, or even if we do get it perfect then you can bet our mascara is screwed up -- and that's probably because the only tube we own expired five years ago but we're a frugal people and it's still half full. And this is us as adults. Functioning ones who carry full time jobs on top of writing.

Imagine us as teens, and you get an even more awkward picture. A lot of us were the girl in the library, the quiet guy who was nice but it wasn't quite enough to get him out of the Friend Zone. Or we made awkward jokes that most people didn't get, and inundated the few close friends we had with enough pop culture references until at least one person laughed (that last line might be a little too close to home).

So when you take that person - one who has acquired a least a little more self-confidence through the process of getting published and achieving their life goal - and you put them in front of a room full of high schoolers... they should be fine, right? I mean, they made it. They're cool now.

Except in our own heads, we're none of those things.

We're still the kid who didn't have the right clothes because we couldn't be bothered to care (then or now), or whose chin was always breaking out because we rest our face in our hands when we're thinking - and we think a lot.

This is why a lot of authors have a knee-jerk aversion reaction to doing school visits. It's like pulling us off the ladder that we've tried so hard to climb, asking us to willingly put ourselves back into high school and - even worse - be the center of attention.

A lot of the advice I've seen about doing school visits has to do with reminding yourself that you're an adult now. That you can walk through the halls without having to worry about fitting in or if you look perfect. And before I continue - don't get me wrong, I never look perfect. That takes a team of professionals.

But I don't walk into high schools and remind myself I'm an adult (except for the one I work at, because, you know, continuing employment is good). When I do a school visit I wear jeans and a t-shirt, I look around and wonder what it's like to be a student there. I peg the cool kids in the hallway, the quiet ones and the angry ones, the resentful ones that don't want to be here - and they definitely don't want to have a goddamn assembly with an adult talking down to them.

And just like with writing I know that there's a sliver of exactly who they are inside of me. Every character I write - even the heinous ones that you despise - have a little bit of me in them. And if I take that and apply it to the real world that means there are 400 seats in the auditorium filled by versions of me - the quiet, the angry, the confident, the lovestruck, the bitter, the anxious and the self-assured.

And I know exactly how to talk to myself. I do it all the time.

I'm a writer.