Here's another great entry in our Advice for Novelists series. I've asked authors, agents, editors and publicists their response to the question:"If you could say one thing to aspiring novelists, what would you say?"
Write regularly and read constantly. I’m a big fan of writing first drafts quickly (just to get first thoughts on the page), but I would tell aspiring writers not to worry about reading quickly. Somehow, graduate school tricked me into thinking there was virtue in cramming as many books into a week as possible. I recently spent six weeks teaching a novel that I’d first read hurriedly for my graduate school reading list (one more title to check off). Those six weeks opened my eyes to the multiple complexities I’d missed by reading the novel too hastily the first time.
--Bethany Pierce, author of the novel Feeling for Bones. Visit her blog to find out more about her writing and artwork.
1 comment:
Reading should definately be slow and thoughtful - and that's from a fast reader. Even so, a good novel is a novel that you can read a second time and still see new things in.
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