McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

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the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: meg_evonne on March 08, 2010, 04:24:56 PM ---I saw that too!  Wasn't it worded strangely? (not a good sign for a writer huh?) I think it said TOO read, but if you are writing in the genre of mystery, sci fi, or romance that you shouldn't read those at the time?  It was a head scratcher for me too.

--- End quote ---

I can see the point of "do not read something that is so very like what you are working on right now that it might be infectious", but not really beyond that. I can also see the point of "don;t just read fiction in your area or you work will be derivative", but that's as far as I get on positive reads on that.

ZDP189:

If you're reading instead of writing, then stop reading. If you're researching instead of writing, then stop researching.

"Do not read fiction," also echoes something Vonnegut once said. (Vonnegut? I wanna say Vonnegut... It was in that essay he wrote calling Ginsburg's "Howl" self-absorbed...) Vonnegut once wrote that he became a writer because he came up through the Chemistry department, rather than the English department. He said if he had started writing in full knowledge of how men like Twain, Dickens and Shakespeare had approached and solved the problems he had, it would have put a cap on his writing before it had even begun.

Sometimes ignorance is a blessing. 

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