The advice that many writers give to those who would be authors is simple: read. In order to be able to write, you need to learn what good writing looks like. Fashions change over time, but good writing is just good thinking. I’ve decided to take one of the many reading challenges you find online at the beginning of the year. Various websites suggest that such “contests” are better than resolutions that fall by the wayside by the beginning of February. For me, I don’t need a contest to make me read, but these contests may make you read things you otherwise wouldn’t. One of the categories in my contest is a book that you’ve read before. If a book is far enough in my past, the details become hazy. I hate to admit it, but I’ve even read books that I remember nothing about. My details of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov are one such victim. I picked this book up the first week of the year. It is a big book and I’m a sl...
Blog of a struggling writer.