Reading | CW Hawes

I’m a Whale!

I’m a whale and didn’t know it.

And you might be saying, “What is he talking about?”

Well, I’m a whale reader. And I turned into one in 2017.

Prior to 2017, I read less than 35 bucks a year. That is still a significant number considering that in 2016 only 35% of Americans read 11 or more books in a year. And by 2021, only 27% of Americans read 11 or more books in a year.

However, in 2017 I read 53 books and two dozen short stories. In 2018, I read 56 books and 37 short stories. And the trend has not slacked off. So far this year, I’ve read 67 novels and novellas and 25 novelettes and short stories.

So what is a whale?

The term comes from the casino industry. A whale is a person who is a big gambler. They either gamble very frequently or they spend a huge amount of money whenever they show up. It goes without saying, casinos love these folk because they bring in big bucks for the establishment. Casinos even reward whales with complementary stays in food and other benefits.

When it comes to books and reading, a whale reader is one who reads at least a book a week.

As to what constitutes a book, well, the definition is a bit loose.

Jacqui Murray, on her blog, Notes that even novelettes Count as books for the purpose of determining ones well book count. A novelette is that story between 7000 and 20,000 words. To my mind, that is cheating. But, hey, if it’s packaged as a”book” who am I to quibble?

Getting Books

Now being a book beluga is something of a problem. Namely, it can be an expensive hobby. So how do I find books on the cheap? And if possible free.

Aside from outfits such as Freebooksy, there are lots of places to get good quality books for free. My favorites are Project Gutenberg, Project Gutenberg Australia, and Faded Page.

There are tens of thousands of quality books on those sites that are no longer under copyright. Granted, they are older books; but what’s wrong with older books? Nothing. Nothing at all.

archive.org is another source of free reading. I got the entire run of the original Weird Tales magazine off Archive. That will keep me busy for quite a while. In addition to Weird Tales, I picked up digital copies of dozens of other pulp magazines for free.

Another way to get free reading is to become a beta reader. Many indie authors are looking for good beta readers. You get a free read and also help an author make his or her book better.

In addition to the free book route, there are also boxcar loads of books you can get on the cheap.

I don’t go to the theater and I don’t watch much on TV or the streaming services. I prefer to read.

So if I add up the cost of movie tickets and streaming services — I figure I can buy one heck of a lot of books for that amount of money.

So where can a person get books on the cheap?

Surprisingly, Kickstarter is an option. Support an author and then rake in all manner of free stuff via the stretch goals. I supported a Dean Wesley Smith campaign and for my $25 I got not only the books I “paid” for, but loads of free books and courses by means of the stretch goals that were unlocked. I got many hours of reading for cents on the page.

But quite honestly, books on the cheap are everywhere — if you keep your eyes open.

Garage/yard/estate sales are great places to get books cheap.

Wildside Press Megapacks are generally 99¢, sometimes less, and offer the reader loads of quality stories and novels. Most are older works, but some are newer. All are good.

Indie authors in Kindle Unlimited often run sales and you can pick up title for free or 99¢.

Just keep your eyes open.

So what do I read? A bit of most everything.

Science fiction, horror, mysteries, adventure, literary fiction, historical fiction, fantasy, post-apocalyptic, and the occasional non-fiction book.

Recently I burned through the Tamer and Star Justice series by Michael-Scott Earle.

I love short stories and am reading the King Kull series by Robert E Howard.

In fact, I’ve stockpiled so many books that if I didn’t buy another book, I’d have enough to last me for years before I’d run out. And that’s a good feeling.

Are you a whale? If so, drop me a note in the comments below and let me know what and who you are reading.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

CW Hawes is a playwright, award-winning poet, and a fictioneer, with a bestselling novel. He’s also an armchair philosopher, political theorist, social commentator, and traveler. He loves a good cup of tea and agrees that everything’s better with pizza.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider buying me a cup of tea. Thanks! PayPal.me/CWHawes

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Guys Reading in the Wild

Last week I posited that books aren’t pink. In other words, guys read too. And what to my wondering eyes should appear, but a fellow reviewing a book who stated he reads 100 books a year. For proof, he referred the reader to his GoodReads account. That’s doggone incredible. He’s to be commended.

Sunday, I was in the airport. Aside from myself, I saw two guys reading while waiting for their flights, and another one carrying a book. I didn’t see a single woman reading. They were eating or talking.

Guys do read. Period. End of story.

If the data is correct that women make the majority of book purchases, then the question that needs to be asked is, how can we get more guys to buy books? Assuming, of course, that the book purchases women make are all for themselves. Which may not in fact be the case.

It could be a situation where guys are using the credit cards and accounts of their mothers, wives, sisters, or girlfriends. Which happens to be what my nephew does. It could also be the case of men such as Michael Anderle, who read 180 books a year on Kindle Unlimited before becoming a writer. One hundred and eighty books read, but not purchased.

It might also be a situation where women buy more books than men simply because they are romance readers, and romance readers are the acme of the voracious reader.

A man buys a science-fiction novel, and a woman buys half a dozen romance novels. Just looking at the statistics, women buy six times the books that men do. Never mind one man and one woman bought those seven books.

This is the kind of slight of hand the publishing industry engages in to justify whatever they wish to justify. Such as the claim they made a few years ago about the renaissance of the physical book versus the ebook. In fact, there was no renaissance of the physical book because the supposed increase was due to the coloring book fad that was occurring at the time. The industry made the claim because they don’t like ebooks. A brilliant illustration of industry bias skewing the data.

But let’s assume for the moment that the myth is true: guys don’t read or buy books. How can we change that? We need to cultivate a positive masculine image around books. Real men read books. And that message needs to be spread far and wide. Probably on the same level that we spread the news that cigarette smoking is bad for your health.

Only in this way, will we be able to counter the damage done in public schools, where boys are taught subliminally that books and reading are for girls.

Guys do read books. And this is a good thing. Reading stimulates the mind, and I think a good imagination and good mental health is important for the male of the species.

Women, encourage the men in your life to read. Men, encourage your buddies to experience a good book and share with them the good books you have read.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

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Suspension Of Disbelief

As readers we all know that when we pick up a novel or a short story, it’s a work of fiction. Something someone made up in order to entertain us.

In other words, we know it’s a story but choose to disregard that knowledge, and instead pretend it’s real.

Lawrence Block posited an interesting thought in his book Telling Lies for Fun & Profit:

But first is it not essential that the writer suspend his own disbelief? He more than anyone knows it’s just a story… To the extent that he visualizes it first, to the extent that he has the experience of his fiction himself before he puts it on paper for someone else, his work acquires an essential reality in his own eyes. He suspends his own disbelief and makes it easier for the reader to go and do likewise.

I hadn’t thought about suspension of disbelief this way before, but I’d have to say Block is on target.

When I think about my own stories and novels, they do indeed acquire an essential reality. The characters become alive and their story becomes real.

I know objectively that Pierce Mostyn and the OUP, Tina and Harry, Bill Arthur and the world of Rocheport, aren’t real. Yet, they are very much real to me. They have lives of their own, and I’m privileged to share their lives on occasion.

The more real my characters are to me, the more I transfer that reality to my writing, which in turn transfers that reality to the reader.

I can’t help but wonder if the books I read that I find boring and fail to enable me to suspend disbelief, are the ones that, in Anthony Trollope’s words, were written by writers telling a story, instead of having a story to tell?

In the first instance, a writer tells the story because he feels he has to. Maybe he needs to pay the rent. In the second, he has a story and it’s so amazing he just has to tell someone. The first is a case of manufacturing a story and selling it to the reader. The second is a case of receiving a story, as it were, and telling it.

When a story has captured a writer to such a degree that he has to tell it, that’s when I think the writer has suspended his own disbelief and thereby enables us to suspend ours.

Of course, subject matter, genre, the writer’s skill, the writer’s style, all come in to play and impact suspension of disbelief. There are some writers who I just can’t stand, yet others love their writing. It’s the beauty in the eye of the beholder thing.

Nevertheless, I’ve read books where the writer truly needed to hire a proofreader. Yet, I read on in spite of the textual interruptions, because the writer told his story so well. My suspension of disbelief weathered the interruptions.

Lawrence Block’s observation is something to think about, and one we writers need to take seriously.

If the story we are writing is just a story, how can we ask our readers to treat it as anything else? They may enjoy it, but will they remember it? Will they even finish reading it?

But if our story is reality to us, then there’s a much greater chance our readers will be suspending their disbelief right along with us.

You can get Mr. Block’s excellent book on Amazon.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

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Best Reads — A Half-Time Assessment

Reading is, for me, the best entertainment. More than movies, more than TV, reading provides a person with more entertainment stimulus, and definitely more interaction.

That’s because movies and TV are like watching a baseball game. Whereas, reading is like playing in a baseball game.

June is almost over, and with it the first half of 2021. So I took a look at my reading from January to the present, and thought I’d share with you my thoughts about some of the books and stories I’ve read.

Thus far, I’ve read:

25 novels/novellas
36 novelettes/short stories
5 screenplays
3 non-fiction books

And I’m currently reading Raymond Chandler’s Farewell, My Lovely, which I’ll undoubtedly finish before month’s end.

Were there any books or authors that particularly grabbed my attention? There were!

The brand-new-to-me author who grabbed my attention was Garrett Dennis with his book Port Starbird: A Storm Ketchum Adventure. In fact, the book so impressed me I bought the entire series, which you can find on Amazon.

I love Mr Dennis’ laidback style of storytelling. No in-your-face-from-the-beginning action, just a deliciously slow build-up of tension to the action-packed climax. Which is how a story should be told, IMO.

Port Starbird was a wonderful read, Garrett Dennis is a talented writer, and I heartily recommend him for your reading pleasure.

The novelette/short story that most impressed me was my re-read of “The Colour Out Of Space” by HP Lovecraft, which is probably his best work.

However, right behind HPL’s novelette was “The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin. The story was originally published in the August 1954 issue of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. I ran across a PDF on the web, and I’m glad I did. You can read it on LightSpeed ezine. It’s a powerful story about breaking the rules and owning up to the consequences.

The novel/novella that lingers in my mind is Last Deadly Lie by Caleb Pirtle III. It’s a masterful piece of writing. A fine example of contemporary Southern Gothic. Mystery, lies, intrigue, and deceit — all expertly woven together to make a story that will linger on in your mind long after you’ve read the last page.

I should add that Mr Pirtle had high-powered competition from the likes of William Meikle, Greig Beck, James Vincett, Andy Graham, John F Leonard, and the above mentioned Garrett Dennis.

I cannot encourage you enough to get a copy of Last Deadly Lie. For me, it is the book to beat this year. You can find it on Amazon.

Non-fiction comes in all shapes, sizes, and subjects. In most cases, I don’t find it to have much more than momentary impact. But that is not the case with How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life; edited and translated by James S Romm from the writings of Lucius Annaeus Seneca.

Seneca never wrote a book on death, although he wrote a lot about death. Professor Romm has done us the great favor of “writing” the book Seneca didn’t get to.

I am not exaggerating when I write: How to Die is one of the most impactful books I’ve ever read. It is, quite ironically, one of the best books on how to live that you could ever read.

Seneca was sick his entire life. Never far from Death’s Door. For him, the possibility of death was a daily reality; and it was the reality of death that taught him how to live and get the most out of life.

How to Die is an amazing book. I urge everyone to get a copy and read it. You can find it on Amazon.

That’s my wrap-up of the best reads during the first half of 2021. Now on to the joy to be found in books during the second half of the year.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

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Style’s the Thing

Raymond Chandler wrote:

… the formula doesn’t matter, the thing that counts is what you do with the formula; that is to say, it is a matter of style.

While Chandler was referring to writing mysteries, I think his observation applies to all genre fiction. This is because genre fiction, commercial fiction, follows a formula. Whether we’re talking about romance, or space opera, or adventure tales, or mysteries, or sports stories, genre fiction is formulaic.

Which brings us to Chandler’s key observation: what’s important is what the writer does with the formula. And what the writer does with the formula is what he called style.

Style differentiates one urban fantasy author from another. Style is the difference between one romance writer and another. And it’s style that differentiates a writer of cosmic horror, from another writer of cosmic horror.

As readers, it’s style that draws us to one author over another. It’s style that moves me, as a reader, to give one writer five stars and another four.

The mystery formula is pretty simple. A kills B. The police think the killer is C, until the sleuth clears C and puts the finger on A.

Erle Stanley Gardner, to shake up the routine, directed his efforts towards the formula. Things such as start with a mystery, the murder should be planned, and the reader should be sympathetic to the victim. Which also means the victim cannot be killed before the story starts.

The end results were very complex plots, but his stories remained formulaic. Perhaps the epitome of the puzzle mystery.

Raymond Chandler, on the other hand, focused on the characters in his novels. Particularly that of Philip Marlowe, his detective. The end result is that Chandler’s mysteries read like literature. They are some the finest novels I’ve read. He brought Marlowe to life. He enables me to experience a California that no longer exists. A California I’d love to live in.

And ultimately it is due to style that Chandler gets five stars from me, and Gardner doesn’t.

It’s all about style. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, they say, and so too is style.

Comments are always welcome. And until next time, happy reading!

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The Best Literature

A couple weeks ago, I was talking with a friend and he mentioned that now that he was retired, he wanted to read the classics. His reason was he wanted to experience the great literature before he died.

I’ve been giving that conversation a think, mostly because I love to read and I too see the Grim Reaper lurking up ahead.

However, when I think about the classics of literature, one word comes to mind: boring. But perhaps that is unfair. After all, what classics are we talking about?

Are we referencing Shakespeare and Milton? The Divine Comedy and Le Morte d’Arthur? War and Peace? Faust? Trollope? Thackeray?

Or are we talking about Riders of the Purple Sage? Dracula? Carmilla? Sherlock Holmes? Poe?

But before we go further, just what is a classic anyway?

Merriam-Webster defines a classic as: “serving as a standard of excellence: of recognized value”. However, that definition begs the questions: Who’s setting the standard? What is the standard they’ve set? And to whom is it of value?

In other words, at the end of the day, classic literature is merely the result of someone’s opinion.

The classics are usually defined as those books generally considered to be great literature. Works by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Proust, Conrad, and the like. Books that academia has decreed to be great literature. And books that, generally speaking, few people today have read outside of professors making them read them.

And while a bunch of dry and dusty academics are certainly entitled to their opinions, I’m rather fond of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s position:

No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.

Notice Burroughs’s first point: no fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. I like to think Shakespeare would agree with him. After all, Bill wasn’t writing great literature, he was writing to make a buck. And to do so, his plays had to entertain.

The point of any story is entertainment. Sure there may be a moral or lesson. But if the story doesn’t entertain — it’s an essay, not a story.

Burroughs goes on to note that if the story does in fact entertain and is clean, then it can be called good literature. Good literature is any story that entertains the reader and contains positive values.

To my mind, though, Burroughs’s most valuable point is the final sentence: The best literature is that which can form the habit of reading — in those who might not otherwise read anything.

That is a very powerful statement. The best literature is that which can turn non-readers into readers.

Quite honestly, I think reading Tarzan can make a reader out of a non-reader faster than can War and Peace.

For myself, I read fiction to be entertained. I read philosophy if I want great thoughts. And sad to say, I find the so called great classics boring. They don’t, in fact, entertain. Perhaps they did at one time, but for the most part they don’t today. IMO.

Burroughs valued reading over great literature. It was important to him that people read. That they wanted to read, hence his valuing of entertainment over greatness. And his valuing a book that turned a non-reader into a reader, over one that didn’t.

And being a reader, I think Burroughs was right in his valuation.

I’d much rather read a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs over anything by Thackeray, Dreiser, Tolstoy, or Dickens. They’re boring. Burroughs is exciting.

If you want to read the so called classics, go ahead. As for me, I’ll take the likes of Robert E Howard, Seabury Quinn, H. Rider Haggard, and Cordwainer Smith. Or the works of small press and indie authors such as William Meikle, RH Hale, Richard Schwindt, Andy Graham, Brian Fatah Steele, Caleb Pirtle III, or Crispian Thurlborn. They write the best literature.

Good literature is fiction that entertains. The best literature is that which turns a non-reader into a reader. And for any author to pen a book or story that can so move a non-reader to become a reader, that author has done a great thing to improve all of humanity.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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2020 Reading in Review

We are now into a new year. All the tumult of 2020 is in the past. It is now simply memory and will eventually fade away. Today is Twelfth Night and marks the end of the Christmas season, and the beginning of Epiphany.

And even though the events of 2020 were the cause of a lot of angst for many, 2020 was a good year for me as a whole, and a very good year as far as reading is concerned. From the pens of 52 authors, I read 52 novels and novellas, 41 short stories and novelettes, and 13 works of non-fiction.

Of those 106 works, 38 were by independent author-publishers. Which is about 36%.

However, that doesn’t mean I supported the megalithic big corporate publishers with the remainder of my reading.

Of those 68 remaining works, I purchased them used, received them as gifts, obtained them for free, or they were published by the small press.

I do not, and will not support the big corporate publishers. They are not the author’s friend. Not unless you are an author who makes piles of money for the company. Then you pretty much get what you want.

The bulk of my fiction reading was mystery and horror, which seems to be what I’m gravitating to in my old age.

Of the 52 authors I read, fiction came from 45. And of those 45, 15 are no longer with us.

I put little stock in “Best of” lists. They are either a display of the compiler’s personal tastes, or they are compiled to promote a political agenda. Neither of which may match my own tastes and interests.

Of those 45 fiction authors I read, 8 very much impressed me with the quality of their writing. Those writers were (in no particular order):

Click or tap the names to be taken to their Amazon pages.

Each of the above writers will give you maximum entertainment value for your buck. You won’t go wrong by buying their books.

So what types of books do these guys write?

If you like spine-tingling horror, there’s Ray Zacek, Lex Allen, Andy Graham, and John F Leonard.

If you like lots of action and adventure, with a hefty dollop of suspense and terror, there are William Meikle’s books — and they’re all good.

A versatile and difficult to categorize writer is Richard Schwindt. He writes humor, mysteries, occult detective, urban-type fantasy (not sure what else to call it), and non-fiction. And everything is good.

Another versatile writer is Caleb Pirtle III. He writes non-fiction, historical novels with lots of mystery and a dollop of romance, and espionage thrillers. A superb wordsmith.

I don’t know if these guys are the best — but I found them the most memorable of my 2020 reading. And hopefully you’ll find them the most memorable of your 2021 reading.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Why the Novella?

Novels are long works of fiction. How long depends on who you ask. Today, novels tend to be quite long on average. After all, publishers need to make a buck. As a reader, though, I find them bloated, ungainly, and filled with lots of boring stuff I usually skip over. Elmore Leonard’s rule about not putting in your novel the stuff readers skip over is routinely ignored in today’s publishing world.

However, that was not always the case. There was a time when novels topped out at 60,000-70,000 words. And most where in the 40,000 word range. For me, as a reader, that’s the length I like. Anything longer has to be super doggone good or I stop reading. Life is too short for boring.

I love short stories. They’re concise and provide bite size entertainment. Some of the most powerful pieces of fiction I’ve read are short stories. Such gems as “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” by Conrad Aiken; “Sredni Vashtar” by Saki; “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway; “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe; and “The Spotted Dog” by Anthony Trollope, to name a few.

Nothing can beat the impact of a well-written short story.

On the other hand, within the last couple years I’ve come to very much appreciate those middle length forms: the novelette, and the novella.

Longer than a short story, the novelette and novella allow for more expensive treatment of the story, deeper treatment of the characters. And I find novelettes and novellas give me a more satisfying read than novels because there is no padding, no boring parts, no filler material to satisfy a publisher’s or editor’s length requirements.

As a writer, I find the novelette, running roughly between 7,000 and 20,000 words, and the novella, at 20,000 to 50,000 words, give me enough space to tell the story, flesh out the characters, and omit the parts I as a reader would probably skip over.

Certain genres, such as horror and perhaps mystery, are at their best in the novella and novelette length.

When reading a horror novel, too often I find the author incapable of maintaining the atmosphere and the suspense. The result is a roller coaster of increasing and decreasing tension, rather than slowly building suspense, tension, and terror which culminate in the climax of the story.

Mystery novels often have unnecessary filler to pad out the length. The sleuth runs here, runs there, often getting nowhere. He or she spends time navel gazing, or baking, or knitting, or we might be treated to an extended tourist guide view of the locale.

In my own writing, I’ve been gradually moving from the novel to the novella and novelette. The Justinia Wright novels are the last hold outs. Although they are relatively short novels for mysteries. They average between 49,000 and 51,000 words, with the longest being 54,000.

Nevertheless, in the future I see more novelette and novella length Justinia Wright mysteries, such as Vampire House, Genome, the novelettes comprising Trio in Death-Sharp Minor, and the forthcoming The Nine Deadly Dolls.

From the beginning, the Pierce Mostyn series has been in novella length and I have no plans to change. The novella gives me plenty of space to tell the story with satisfying pacing, tension, and atmosphere; and to give the reader good character development.

Given how busy our lives are these days, it seems to me fiction that can provide a satisfying virtual experience in one sitting, say, on the bus or train commuting to work, or listening in the car during the daily commute, or in the evening after work, or on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, such a read would be ideal. A visit to another world taking just about an hour, perhaps two. Sounds perfect to me.

The novella and the novelette: not too big and not too small. They are just right.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Fiction Is People

Fiction is all about people. At least good fiction is. That’s why good fiction stays with us. Why it’s memorable.

Theodore Sturgeon once said, “Good fiction is people. And people are people you know.” Which is probably the point of the old writing adage: write what you know.

It’s all fine and dandy for the writer to show off his or her knowledge about cars, or cooking, or stamp collecting, or orchids — but if those things don’t touch people, so what?

Of late, I’ve been watching Colombo. The lieutenant is a wonderfully drawn character, and certainly went a long way to contribute to the show’s popularity. What I find of even more interest, is that Colombo knows people. He knows what makes them tick. What is likely and unlikely behavior. He’s a shrink masquerading as a police officer in a rumpled raincoat.

Columbo is all about people: their greed, their habits. And how it is that in the end, who they are is what ultimately trips up their attempts to get away with murder.

Good fiction is about people, because without people there is no story. How can a story exist without people? Sure, we can substitute animals for people, but that’s just a camouflage. The story is still about people, and still tells us something about the human condition. It is as Ray Bradbury noted: create your characters (the people), let them do their thing — and there is the story.

There are writers who get hung up on plot. They have to detail each little action in the story. Too often, what gets lost along the way are the people in the story. And the reader knows it. The characters are flat, lifeless paper dolls.

Now some readers don’t care. They devour the story and move on to the next one. Those readers are kind of like junkies just looking for reading fix.

However, I think most readers want a quality reading experience. They want to read about people like themselves, or about people they would like to become, doing wonderful and amazing things.

Tarzan is memorable because he personifies the best in us and is ultimately someone who we’d like to be.

Rex Stout gave us the sedentary eccentric genius, Nero Wolfe, and the wisecracking man of action, Archie Goodwin. I find myself drawn to both of them, but particularly to Wolfe. Why? Because I would like to be the master of that brownstone. Good food, good books, the big globe, beautiful orchids. I’d just sub tea for the beer.

I can’t recall any story that I remember solely because of the plot. I do, though, remember many because of the characters. Bilbo Baggins. Hercule Poirot. Sherlock Holmes. Carnacki. Rona Dean (from RH Hale’s Church Mouse). Tony Price and Chris Allard (from Richard Schwindt’s two mystery series). Carol (from Steve Bargdill’s Banana Sandwich). The Zombie from Ben Willoughby’s The Undude. Tatsuya (from Crispian Thurlborn’s 01134). And more. So many more.

Fiction is all about people. Fiction is us.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Reading Indie

I am surprised by the number of authors on Twitter who say they don’t have time to read, or who don’t read books by indie authors.

Don’t Have Time To Read

This one just boggles my mind. How can a writer say he or she doesn’t have time to read?

That’s like a painter saying he doesn’t have time to look at art.

Or a woodworker saying he doesn’t have time to look at other examples of woodworking.

Stephen King has noted that if one wants to be a writer, he needs to do two things:

1. 1. 1. Read a lot
    2. Write a lot

And Mr. King is not alone in his sentiment. Every writer who makes a living from writing says the same thing.

Reading the writing of other writers not only provides enjoyment for the reader — but it is a seminar on how others approach the art and craft of storytelling.

Writers need to be readers.

Don’t Read Indie

This too boggles my mind. How can an indie author not read the words of his or her fellows?

That’s like an eye doctor never talking with other eye doctors. How is that going to work? I would not want to go to that doctor.

It saddens me to see indie authors not list an indie book when they play those Twitter games of list your current favorite reads. Or an indie author when they’re tagged to list current favorite authors.

I read an average of four books a month, along with a bushel basket of short stories and novelettes. I also sneak in some nonfiction. And most of my reading is of indie authors.

Mind you, I don’t read bestsellers. I find bestsellers, for the most part, not the best books. I scour the bottom of the barrel and maybe the middle of the barrel. That is where I find the real talent. The writers who truly know how to tell a good story. And I find it a shame that those writers are the ones who deserve to be bestsellers and are not.

Indie April is over. But that doesn’t mean the adventure has to stop. Those indie authors are still there waiting to be discovered. Go out and discover them. Find those books that are not in the top 300,000 on Amazon’s paid list. That’s where you’ll find the good stuff.

Writers, if you are serious about your craft, read lots and write lots.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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