What Do You Read As You Write?

Most writers would say, if pressed to discuss how they work, that they have a system. If they're feeling lofty at the moment they might refer to it as a "process." And all of us are avid readers as well as writers, or chances are, we wouldn't have ended up facing the business end of the computer in the first place.

Since my career began a little over a decade ago I've written in three genres (four if you count the 1940s mystery in my desk drawer). I've been published in women's lit (some of the titles would fall under the "chick lit" category), historical fiction, and historical nonfiction. And I've tended to make it an unwritten policy not to read other people's titles from the same genre I'm writing in at the time. My rationale is that I don't want to be influenced, even subconsciously, by my colleagues' plotlines, characters, or twists. And when I'm working on a nonfiction title, it's always such a scramble to get all my research accomplished that I don't have time to read anything else.

That said, my self-imposed policy has been difficult to maintain at times because historical fiction in particular is like "literary crack" to me.

So this past summer I decided to try something new: every night before I went to bed I would read Someone Else's Fiction for a half hour or so. And I discovered that rather than have another author's words gumming up my own "process," the act of reading right before bedtime ended up calming my brain into a sedate trot, slowing my blood pressure, and enabling me to sleep more fully and awaken with a clearer, less stressed head.

And before you comment about my choice of reading matter providing a soporific, I will hasten to add that I knew my selections were going to be marvelous; they were books at the top of my TBR pile just waiting for me to find the time to grab them. Plus, they were all written by personal friends.

Indeed, every title has proven to be "unputdownable."

I began with my friend Sharon Pomerantz's stunning literary fiction debut, RICH BOY, then moved on to Leanna Renee Hieber's THE DARKLY LUMINOUS FIGHT FOR PERSEPHONE PARKER.

Then it was on to our own Lauren Willig's THE BETRAYAL OF THE BLOOD LILY (and now I'm catching up on THE TEMPTATION OF THE NIGHT JASMINE.)

Just waiting to have their spines gently cracked are C.W. Gortner's novels THE LAST QUEEN and THE CONFESSIONS OF CATHERINE DE MEDICI

(I love reading historical fiction about the women I cover in my nonfiction Royal series for NAL and both "Juana the Mad" and Catherine de Medici merit chapters in NOTORIOUS ROYAL MARRIAGES.)

And after Gortner, comes the latest from Susan Holloway Scott, THE COUNTESS AND THE KING.


How do you work? Do you read other authors while you're researching and writing your own books? Is there a method to your madness? Do you steer clear of pleasure-reads in the same genre as your wip, or do you dive in? Do you tend to read within the same genre as you craft your own books, or are your literary tastes more eclectic?

I apologize for writing a quickie post; multiple deadlines are claiming my attention this month. But in this economy, that's a good thing, so I'm not complaining.