Finding What You Love
The longer I’m on this writing journey, the more I see the most difficult challenge and greatest factor in improving is knowing thyself. Oh man, is it hard!
I read lots of fantasy growing up. The classics, too. I don’t know what happened, though, but after awhile, I stopped reading fantasy. Maybe I read a lot of romance? Romantic suspense was in there somewhere. And then it was chick lit and women’s fiction and literary novels (what a combo!), then spy thrillers with a splash of cozy mysteries, and now I read lots of paranormal YA with a splash of fantasy and some literary stuff.
It’s hard enough to find what you love to write and an idea you love to write and a world you want to write in, but you know what’s really tough?
Finding books you really love, love, love. I’m not talking about books you enjoy and books you like. I’m talking about those worlds that suck you in, that you want to stay in forever, that you’d show up at the bookstore at midnight the night before its release because you Just. Can’t. Wait. to read it.
I read plenty of stuff I like a lot. What I can’t find enough of is that stuff I love to death. I’d say only about 20% of the books I read are in that love-love-love category.
What about you? What percentage of the books you read are that upper, love so much you want to cry category? Ever go through a dry spell of finding them?
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Natasha Fondren is a writer traveling the U.S. in a camper with her four cats. She is currently enjoying the lizards and desert heat in Arizona.
Gosh! When you put it that way, there’s a very low percentage of “love, love, love” in my reading. There’s a lot of “like a lot”. Lately I’ve been finding authors I love, and reading a ton of their books, and then getting numb to them, and searching for someone else. I’m a reading slut.
Robin, I’m a reading slut, too. I want more love, love, love, though! And I hate falling out of the “honeymoon period” with an author!
I read cross-genre, which I think shows in my writing. I’ll often bring home a stuffed book bag from the library, and I won’t finish any of them. And then I’ll have a streak of reading books that I love, love, love, one book after another. So I wouldn’t try to guess the percentage. I think I’m due for another streak.
Edie, I agree. I think it really helps to read cross genre. Wow, I want a streak like that!
There are lots of books I love love love but partly it’s because I’m stupidly loyal. Robin McKinley’s last really good book was SPINDLE’S END but I still read everything she writes and convince myself to love it.
Fortunately, since I read so fast and put my own writing on the back burner more often than not, it’s usually a short time between love-this-so-much-I-cry books.
What are some of your favs, N?
Aerin, ooh, you made a blog post I kept in my browser but it disappeared. I wanted to get some samples of some of those books.
That is loyalty! That is NICE. I want to read faster. And write faster! Maybe I’ll do a blog post about my faves, lately!
Oh my gosh, Natasha – this is EXACTLY what I’ve been asking myself for the last several days! Must be something in the air, lol. I was even going to blog about, but I’ve been waiting until I have it all clear in my head, which hasn’t happened yet.
I think I’ve been trying to force myself in genres that perhaps aren’t right for me, but have been questioning just what books are the ones that I truly LOVE, and if I would be comfortable writing there. So far, I’m leaning toward darkly comedic urban fantasy as my favorite, but have a fear that I couldn’t pull it off.
Yet, when I look at the books that have sucked me right in and made me not to leave, and keep going back, they usually involved the following elements:
humor, generally dark humor and irony
fantasy/paranormal/magic of some sort
wounded, dark heroes/anti-heroes
the ordinary made extraordinary in some way
victory for the underdog
characters who don’t give a d@mn what others think of them
Now… how do I pull that off?
Oh, and hot sexual tension between the wounded anti-hero and a kick-ass heroine who kicks HIS butt.
I love that storyline, Kate! And don’t be afraid, you can pull it off!
I really struggle with finding books I really love, though. Maybe Charles is right, maybe it’s to do with age. Disappointing!
The last book I read that yanked me in like that was Eric Von Lustbader’s “The Ninja.” Glad you reminded me so I could go read it again!
Oh wow, Rick! That sounds yummy to me!
The authors’ books I look forward to with much anticipation are: Diana Gabaldon, Bernard Cornwell, Wilbur Smith, Jack Whyte, Naomi Novik, Dean Koontz, and a smattering of others.
I’m going to have to Kindle those, Barbara!
As you get older it seems the percentage of LOVE books drop. Probably due in part to experience and in part to changes in one’s emotional reactions to things. I think I’m like a heroin addict with reading. I had such a high when I was young from reading and I keep trying to get that fix again, but it seldom reaches the heights it once did.
Charles, that’s sorta depressing, but it appears it may be true.
But yeah, me too! I’m always searching for that high.
I’ve loved many. Unfortunately, my favorite is by an author who is no longer writing novels. Or maybe the publisher cut her in their giant sweep to improve their bottom line. Dunno. All I can say is that I usually love novels from authors who don’t cough up several books at a time. that gives me something to look forward to. Isabel Allende comes to mind, as well as Gail Tsukiyama.
Oh no! Who is your favorite, Kath? I just bought Isabel Allende’s latest, but I’m still reading House of Spirits. Sometimes, when I love a book a lot, I’ll re-type it, just to understand it. Doing that with House of Spirits is slooooowwww-going, LOL!
I recently finished Island Beneath the Sea. Loved it! And love your idea about retyping the story. I wonder if that would help, as if through osmosis I’d absorb their incredible talent?
I sure wish, Kath! There is a deeper understanding of how they achieved what they did and how they constructed things. Generally I understand in a couple chapters of typing, but her writing is pretty dense and full of story. So I’m still typing away.
I agree with Charles; experience of the world matters. There was a ‘high’ when I was younger, esp. with romance novels–finding new authors, reading everything they wrote, etc… but today, not so much. However, I do find gems from time to time that I really enjoy, especially in historicals. For example, Ariana Franklin’s “Mistress of the Art of Death.” Charles Todd’s “A Duty to the Dead” and “The Ninth Daughter” by Barbara Hamilton.
Elizabeth, it strikes me that I used to read faster, too. And life was less busy then. We weren’t online all the time, and I cuddled up with books WAY more.
I’m similar to Charles as well.
But when I find book/author I love, I buy for all the backlist and watch for new releases– cause ever book by that writer always has someting I need.