Every Day Is a Reading Day (But These Are National Holidays)
There are two days coming up this week that celebrate literature: National Read a Book Day happening tomorrow and International Literacy Day on Thursday. I can’t think of a better way to enjoy these days then by (you know what I’m going to say. Insert book marketing message here for my new romcom). 😊
On this holiday, Facebook reminded me it was 11 years ago that I finished 100 pages of a story for a 3-Day Novel Writing contest. The idea behind the contest was to try and write as full a novel as possible over the Labor Day weekend, without doing any work beforehand beyond thinking and strategizing. It was definitely the most intense creative experience I’ve ever done, but it brought me back to my college days of starting papers the week they were due.
Nowadays, I’m much more organized, and outline my ideas in a journal before fully developing the story and characters. Writing more than 100 pages requires discipline (although producing that much in three days ALSO required discipline, just not sustained over weeks, months, and years). And I’ve learned that having the bones and structure written down already gives me something to lean on when I feel that control start to falter.
But on the other side of this coin is improvement. The best way to practice the craft is to, well, do it, but that’s not the only important thing. Reading also helps build your skill set, whether you’re reading in your typical writing genre or something else entirely. Even if I’m reading something I’m not thrilled with, I can look at that experience to figure out what I do and don’t like. Then I can look at what I’m doing in my WIP through that lens to help edit what’s not working.
So while I’m trying to figure out what my next project will be, I’ll be celebrating those two reading days with my current enjoyment of Master of the Revels by Nicole Galland. This is the sequel to the book she wrote with Neal Stephenson called The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. It’s a great mix of sci-fi themes from quantum physics and fantasy elements like witchcraft. The plot in both is fairly involved, but the characters are SO much fun that they carry the narrative well.
And that’s what I love about how literature is evolving. The straight-up one genre is not how everything has to be. Sure, traditional publishing wants to know where to place your novel on the bookshelves, but now it’s much more common to have two or three different genres combined for a more complex story. My current book, Running with Hounds…and an English Degree is part summer romcom, part contemporary women’s fiction with elements in the new adult category.
Was I thinking about any of that while writing it? Nope. Do I have to think about it while marketing it? Yup. But as I said, it’s much more common these days to have hybrid stories, and I’m all for keeping that trend alive. I think that makes reading a much more enjoyable, and accessible, experience for all. And that’s what writing is all about.