Should Writers Read?

I hear from other writers and agents about how writers should read. Well after so many years and so many books, I feel like I've done that already. These days I don't have time to read. I'd rather write. But they say reading makes you a better writer. Really? Why? How? So you can see how other writers write? So how will that make me a better writer? I don't agree with any of that. If anything, reading other writers' stuff just for the sake of reading will increase the chances that you will copy them or get ideas from them, and I do not approve of that. I think a writer should write original stuff and not "bite" off another writer.

Nor should a writer copy another writer's style or use another writer's ideas, even if it is used in another way. I don't believe in that at all. It would be like a music composer using another tune or melody from another composer's song in a song that they are claiming to write.

No. I think if a writer wants to read someone else's book, that's fine, of course. But only when they truly want to read it. Sure a writer can be a fan of another writer and read their books for pleasure. For me that other writer would be Robert E. Howard. If you haven't heard of him, he's the guy who created the genre called "Sword and Sorcery." And he created CONAN, KING KULL, and a bevy of other characters. I haven't read them all, but I plan to.

But only because I enjoy it. And to tell you the truth, there are not many authors out there whose work I enjoy. Really. Ray Bradbury would be on that list of writers whose work I enjoy. But so many of these other authors, old and new, I don't have any interest at all. Take Jonathan Franzen, for instance. When all the hullaballoo happened when his last book came out, I picked one up and started reading it. But you know what? I put it right back down after one page. It was like, so what? No interest.

Yeah, I've picked up a Twilight book, too. It was like, what? There was nothing there for me. Of course, I'm not a teenage girl. That must be the prerequisite for being interested in that book. Same thing for Harry Potter and Hunger Games. I'm not a teenage girl. So no interest. And besides, those stories are basically copies of other writers' ideas.

But that's not all. I've picked up books written by James Patterson, Dan Brown, Cormac McCarthy and others. Nope. No interest. Were those aimed at a grown male audience? If they were, it didn't work for me. I put those down, too.

The last two books I read were this year, and both were about the man about whom I wrote my last book. John Dunn. Well, THE WASHING OF THE SPEARS really wasn't about John Dunn. It was about the ZULUS in particular and the ANGLO-ZULU War. Now that was an interesting book. I like true stuff from history. Even if it might be a novel. That's one of the reasons I strayed from my TRENT SMITH SERIES and wrote it. True stuff. Not stuff of fantasy.

John Dunn was someone who really lived, and what I wrote really happened. That's interesting to me. A real story about a real man who lived a real life with real adventures. That's not to say I can't enjoy fiction. I already said I appreciated Robert E. Howard and his fiction stories. But when it comes to these other genres and those other books, forget it. I need that time to write. Thanks anyway.