What I Am Reading

 I am working on a few stories that reach down into my heritage like shoving your hand down into a garbage disposal to find the clog and hoping nobody flicks the switch and mutilates your hand.

It has involved quite a bit of reading. So... during the last three days, this is what I have read:

Sweet Town by Toni Cade Bambara

The Water Faucet Vision by Gish Jen

The Monkey Garden by Sandra Cisneros

A Dry Drive by Andy Adams

Headed for the Setting Sun by James Emmit McCauley

from Adventures of a Ballad Hunter by John A. Lomax

from Adventures with a Texas Naturalist by Roy Bedicheck

The Portrait by Tomas Rivera

La Fabulosa: A Texas Operetta by Sandra Cisneros

Bad Girls by Harryette Mullen

Why Texas Is the Way It Is by Betty Sue Flowers

Social Studies by Kinky Friedman

If you want to share you thoughts about any of these works, please let me know.

To Be A Writer You Must Be A Reader

 One of the habits that might be the hardest to establish if you are aspiring to be a writer is to spend more time reading than writing.

Yes. I said it. Read more than you write. 

I say that because the knee-jerk reaction of a new writer is to just write, write, write. But....

You must read literature to write literature. There is no better way to learn how to write than to read from those writers who have come before you. That especially goes for genre writers. You may love romance, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy, etc. 

So, you want to write in that genre.... Then you better read everything in that genre. Study it. Learn from it. 

What have you been reading lately? Is it helping your writing goals?

Dare To Write Despite Every Failure

 You want to write. You do it for a day, a week.... maybe longer. Then, you stop.

I get it. Writing is hard... Very hard.

You compare yourself to the greats: Shakespeare, Hemingway, name your favorite genre author...

We don't compare. But there is hope... We aren't them. We are who we are. And... we have a unique perspective.

So... write about that. Dare to write. Dare to write despite every perceived failure to write which you might believe you have weathered.