Indie Publishing Guide Tip #1: Read widely and all the time
One day, in the summer of my fifth grade year, my parents sent away to visit Grandma Francis.
"Your grandmother hasn't seen you in a while," my mother explained. "She wants to get to know you better."
I was supposed to spend one week with Grandma Francis in New Jersey, which was great, but about half way through the week, my parents called and explained that since my other set of grandparents (my dad's parents) lived in Pennsylvania, she was going to drop me off with them for another week-long visit.
So I think I'm justified in saying that they were just trying to get rid of me.
Grandma and Grandpa Noll were still working back then, so essentially I stayed in their house until they came home. Grandma Noll left me with a stack of books to read during the day when they were gone, most of them westerns, but I ended up finding a series of mysteries that I ripped through. The first one had something to do with a murder on a boat. There was a knife plunged into the deck, a dead body, several suspects, etc . . . . Whatever. It worked. I was hooked.
Not that I needed very much encouragement to read. I come from a family of readers. My mother read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to me when I was too young to do it by myself, and when I could read, I devoured everything I could get my hands on. Dr. Seuss led to Lloyd Alexander, then The Hobbit, then The Lord of the Rings. When I was in ninth grade, my brother introduced me to Stephen King, and I ripped through everything he'd written, from Carrie to The Talisman. (This was the 80's though, so I didn't do it strictly in that order. I started with Night Shift, then moved on to Firestarter, then to Pet Semetery, The Bachman Books, Skelton Crew, The Dead Zone, etc . . . .) The Stand was a revelation, and my adolescent mind was blown away by the sheer magnitude and complexity of IT when it was published.
Then came all of the science fiction, The Foundation Trilogy being my favorite, followed by deeper reads, books that were interesting and complex, containing important social criticism : A Clockwork Orange, Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Brave New World, The Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill A Mockingbird.
I still maintained my connection to so-called fun books, though. Especially Stephen King. When his The Dark Tower books came out, I drove over to the mall to pick up my pre-ordered copy with each new volume. I was so eager to read them that I sat in the parking lot and read the first couple of chapters before I went home.
In college I was exposed to literature the likes of which I'd never seen, plots, diction, syntax, structures, ideas, etc . . . that were difficult to comprehend, that made me think deeply, critically, creatively, and which challenged me to consider beliefs, opinions, and way's of life vastly different from my own.
These days, I read anything I can get my hands on. Recently I've been on a biography binge. I read Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman, And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life, Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company, and Petty: The Biography. Right now I'm reading Silence: A Novel, mainly because I want to see the Scorsese adaptation, and the rule in my house is that if a movie comes out that's based on a book, I have to read the book first.
My point is this: if you want to write, you have to read, and you have to read widely. Read everything you can get your hands on. Broaden your interests. Read fiction and non-fiction. Read poetry, newspapers, magazines. The more styles you expose yourself to, the more ideas you encounter, the more structures you puzzle through, the better your writing will be.
Next up: Write as much as possible, even if it's bad.
Are you a fan of horror or post-apocalyptic fiction? Join my email list and receive a free short story, audio book, and theme song for "Beta":
A monster terrorizes an isolated village in the mountains of Eastern Europe, draining the blood of its victims, leaving them frozen in the snow. The villagers hunt wolves, decapitate “vampires,” but the murders continue. As each new body is found, the residents grow more and more paranoid. Who will be next? Will it ever end?
www.jamesnoll.net
"Your grandmother hasn't seen you in a while," my mother explained. "She wants to get to know you better."
I was supposed to spend one week with Grandma Francis in New Jersey, which was great, but about half way through the week, my parents called and explained that since my other set of grandparents (my dad's parents) lived in Pennsylvania, she was going to drop me off with them for another week-long visit.
So I think I'm justified in saying that they were just trying to get rid of me.
Grandma and Grandpa Noll were still working back then, so essentially I stayed in their house until they came home. Grandma Noll left me with a stack of books to read during the day when they were gone, most of them westerns, but I ended up finding a series of mysteries that I ripped through. The first one had something to do with a murder on a boat. There was a knife plunged into the deck, a dead body, several suspects, etc . . . . Whatever. It worked. I was hooked.
Not that I needed very much encouragement to read. I come from a family of readers. My mother read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to me when I was too young to do it by myself, and when I could read, I devoured everything I could get my hands on. Dr. Seuss led to Lloyd Alexander, then The Hobbit, then The Lord of the Rings. When I was in ninth grade, my brother introduced me to Stephen King, and I ripped through everything he'd written, from Carrie to The Talisman. (This was the 80's though, so I didn't do it strictly in that order. I started with Night Shift, then moved on to Firestarter, then to Pet Semetery, The Bachman Books, Skelton Crew, The Dead Zone, etc . . . .) The Stand was a revelation, and my adolescent mind was blown away by the sheer magnitude and complexity of IT when it was published.
Then came all of the science fiction, The Foundation Trilogy being my favorite, followed by deeper reads, books that were interesting and complex, containing important social criticism : A Clockwork Orange, Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Brave New World, The Lord of the Flies, Fahrenheit 451, Of Mice and Men, and To Kill A Mockingbird.
I still maintained my connection to so-called fun books, though. Especially Stephen King. When his The Dark Tower books came out, I drove over to the mall to pick up my pre-ordered copy with each new volume. I was so eager to read them that I sat in the parking lot and read the first couple of chapters before I went home.
In college I was exposed to literature the likes of which I'd never seen, plots, diction, syntax, structures, ideas, etc . . . that were difficult to comprehend, that made me think deeply, critically, creatively, and which challenged me to consider beliefs, opinions, and way's of life vastly different from my own.
These days, I read anything I can get my hands on. Recently I've been on a biography binge. I read Fierce Patriot: The Tangled Lives of William Tecumseh Sherman, And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life, Ambrose Bierce: Alone in Bad Company, and Petty: The Biography. Right now I'm reading Silence: A Novel, mainly because I want to see the Scorsese adaptation, and the rule in my house is that if a movie comes out that's based on a book, I have to read the book first.
My point is this: if you want to write, you have to read, and you have to read widely. Read everything you can get your hands on. Broaden your interests. Read fiction and non-fiction. Read poetry, newspapers, magazines. The more styles you expose yourself to, the more ideas you encounter, the more structures you puzzle through, the better your writing will be.
Next up: Write as much as possible, even if it's bad.
Are you a fan of horror or post-apocalyptic fiction? Join my email list and receive a free short story, audio book, and theme song for "Beta":
A monster terrorizes an isolated village in the mountains of Eastern Europe, draining the blood of its victims, leaving them frozen in the snow. The villagers hunt wolves, decapitate “vampires,” but the murders continue. As each new body is found, the residents grow more and more paranoid. Who will be next? Will it ever end?
www.jamesnoll.net
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