I’m uncertain when it happened or precisely how it happened but sometime ago I decided to read everything and practically anything. So the benefit of this was I found new authors I liked and read multiple bits of their writing. The disadvantage of this was that I read a few I didn’t care for.
I have read romance, thriller, horror, Science-fiction and fantasy, some nonfiction, and the rare western. I honestly recognize I am the better for it. Wanting to write and pursuing writing, people tell you to read and to read in the genre you want to work in and I do a lot of that. The added plus is that I can read a fantasy mystery and see it for what it is, a re-skin of a mystery novel. The way I write and my choice in reading material has benefited from it.
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It’s benefited my work by giving me a new perspective on things and to make some of my writing more three-dimensional. What do I mean by this? I like high fantasy or any fantasy and some of the current mash-ups do that -mash two or more genre’s together- brilliantly.
I feel my writing usually does mash-up other genres into one and sometimes I’m successful and other times I’m not very- but being exposed to different genres gives me the ability to view where I fail or succeed.
Some books I read before 2018 that I cannot give high enough praise to- (no I’m not set up right now to get anything from using these link… obligatory frowny face… but the authors will if you buy them!)
Justice Calling (The Twenty-Sided Sorceress) (Volume 1) by Annie Bellet
The Bow of Destiny: An Epic Fantasy Adventure by P.H. Solomon
The Savage Song by Victoria Schwab
The Copper Promise by Jen Williams
The Goon Squad stuff by Jonathan L. Howard This is a series of short stories- sort of like a serialized novel.
