Day 24 - Reading

I have the opportunity to attend a book festival next year and sit on a panel with a New York Times bestseller if I have a book drafted in time for her to read through it. So, you might wonder, why the hell am I not elbows deep in the manuscript doing everything in my power to crank out the book  as fast as humanly possible? It is simple, I have never written in that articular genre before. I have a number of ideas but nothing solid or even a concept fully realized. She is very important to me and I want to make sure that when I send her the manuscript (yes she said first draft was fine but I will obsess over editing until the last minute) it is at least in decent shape.

One thing I am doing in order to prepare for writing that book is reading. Not just sitting around curled up with the next book in my To Be Read pile that current dominates my nightstand and has completely covered the second nightstand in my bedroom, I am borrowing murder mystery books from the library and from friends like it is going out of style. I am also reading books in all of her series to see how she creates her stories, goes from one book to the next and how she keeps e different series separate aside from sets of characters.

I know the main concept of my book (or if I do it correctly, books) but there is a great amount a research to be done as well as understanding the genre itself. So once again I am reading. There is something magical about being able to go to the library and browse for an hour and call it work. I also am known to request my local book stores and meander through different sections when I am hunting or researching different genres. There have even been days I have stalked the shelves of the Barnes & Nobel a few miles from my house for the singular purpose of finding the shelf I wish my book would sit on someday.

before I begin working on my next project, my first murder mystery, I will be finishing up the current projects clogging my schedule and staring at me from their looming deadlines. Reading in any genre can help improve writing skills however so I will be sticking with this current course as I finish what I am working on and then I will be diving head first into the first of what will hopefully become a fun new world for me.