The writer... is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, because that is what he will know.

-- The Writing Life, Annie Dillard


Or: Think about what you're thinking about.

I've been quoting a good bit lately from that old grand standby The Writing Life, cause I re-read it again a couple of weeks ago and some of its more potent, pertinent gems got lodged in my field of perception.

I re-read Dillard a lot. Also Sylvia Plath, Joan Didion, Charles de Lint (big favorite, especially the Newford stuff), Stephen King. For stand-alone books I read Crooked Tree every summer, by Robert C. Wilson; Crooked Tree is set in northern lower Michigan, also in the summer. This seems to be a trend for me, re-reads of stories that take place in the season I usually re-read them. Crooked Tree is an interesting interpretation of authentic Ojibwe lore, the bearwalk; what a modern bearwalk might look like. It's actually well-researched.

I also go back to The Secret History by Donna Tartt a lot; a Judy Blume book called Tiger Eyes that I first fell in love with at about twelve, and anything by Kay Redfield Jamison (epecially An Unquiet Mind).

Just thoughts.