How often do we as writers hear this? All the time. All of the books on writing fiction emphasize the importance of reading for developing the craft, as do all the blogs I follow.

And now I myself am writing a post on how writers need to read.

Are you sick of it yet?

Firstly, this blog was not initially brought on by a desire to help nourish your writing abilities (although obviously I do want your writing to be nourished). Instead, it was brought on by SlushPile Hell's latest post, where the querying author did not carefully read what types of books the agent was looking for, so ended up sending him the exact opposite. So don't just read, but, when it comes to querying, read critically.

And to enhance what I mean by "read critically," I will draw on my education background. Obviously, "read critically" means pick up on the details, like whether the agent you're querying does or does not represent romance novels, but "read critically" also has a second meaning, at least from a writer's perspective. It means to read word-for-word. We know our books, we have shed sweat and tears over them. It is possible that I shed blood over some of my hard-to-write scenes. I know my book. I know what I mean. I know what those words are supposed to be and say.

But they aren't always what I think they are.

So if, as a writer, you're ever in doubt of whether or not that short story or novel is ready to be let out into the world, take this piece of advice: read your work out loud. It is the advice that I give to my students when they are writing a paper, and I am giving it to you now.

Yes, reading a 100,000 word novel out loud will take a long time and probably won't be a lot of fun, but I can guarantee that when you read that work out loud, you will automatically change the phrasing in some of your sentences. And I can almost guarantee that whatever you changed them to will be better than the original. How you speak is often more genuine than how you write, and when you're reading out loud you will often catch those typos, those repeated words, those awkward phrases that escaped you when you were writing and doing your initial revisions.

So before you let your masterpiece go to an agent, an editor, or to the press (real or of the self-publishing variety), take the time to read it out loud. It's critical.

Write your own Sensory Saturday post in the comments below.

She tilted her head back, nostrils flaring as she scented the air.

The scent was familiar, but it was one she had not smelled for months. It was clean, but not what others might consider clean. There was an underlying smell of fresh earth, newly revealed after the melt of feet of snow.

She had spent enough time in the city to know that the smell of earth, no matter how it made her heart swell, would be offsetting to those who lived in the city.

But she was no longer one of them.

She turned her head to the northeast and let the wind breathe over her face. It played there, breaking over her nose, caressing her cheeks, tickling her ears and blowing back her hair.

The northern wind reddened her skin, a remnant of the long winter, but she did not care. She could smell a new scent on the wind, one that filled her at once with excitement and peace.

It was a scent she could never have described, but which she recognized instantly.

There was rain on the air.

Just checked out Advanced Fiction Writing and saw that they have a completely new layout. As soon as I get a free minute, or hour, I'm going to check it out and see what else might be new.

If you're interested in writing and have never checked out Advanced Fiction Writing, you really should.

When some people pursue knowledge, they read Aristotle and Plato, Emerson and Thoreau. Maybe they open up the American Journal of Science, or even just Google the word of the day (which is occlusion today).

All of those are good ways to learn, but I feel that fantasy writers need to go further. We need to think outside of the box. Philosophy, literature, science...all of those are important areas of study. A large vocabulary is an important tool to have in the writer's toolbox.

But when you're writing fantasy, you need to know things that your characters might know. How do my characters keep their skin clear and free of blemishes (which will be important in The Bodyguard)? How do they treat wounds? What homeopathic remedies might have been available to them?

In a fantasy world, you can create plants and potions with their own properties, but I think it is better to bring in elements of reality whenever I can.

So I found a remedy that would slide easily into any of my stories: honey.

I won't expound upon the virtues too much here, except to say that I have started using honey for various reasons myself, and I have found that it works. So when I put honey into my stories and have Lakshmi putting it on her face like modern women would spread beauty cream, I can support it with my own experience.

And I believe my pursuit of knowledge, at least in this one instance, has been a success.

If you want to learn more about the uses of honey, and check out a truly great blog, go visit Crunchy Betty's blog and learn all about honey and the virtues of putting food on your face.

Unfortunately, Talented: Fire did not make the next round of cuts in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest. On the bright side, it did get a very favorable review by the Publishers Weekly reviewer. Talented: Fire was being judged against other Fantasy, Science-Fiction, and Horror books, and I feel nothing but pride that my book made it as far in the contest as it did.

I just finished reading the book Fast-Tracked by Tracy Rozzlynn and really enjoyed it. It's the first in a trilogy and I will definitely be making time to read other books by this author. I'm glad I found her and I hope you all take the time to check her out.

Here's a link to Fast-Tracked on Amazon if you don't want to go through the hassle of Googling it yourself.

Any books you have recently (or not so recently) read and would like to suggest?

If you're interested in writing, please take a stab at writing your own sensory-rich passage.

The sun beat down on her. She could see it even through her closed eyes. Her eyelids turned it from a blinding light to a bright orange-red glow.

A bead of sweat broke loose and stole down her neck to gather with its brethren in the hollow of her throat. A voice penetrated the barrier of her headphones and the sounds of The Boss. She reached lazily up and slipped the headphones from her ears, leaving them to loop around her neck.

"Hmm?"

"It's time to go!"

With her headphones off, she could hear the splash of water and the delighted screams of children. She was no longer alone, lost in the sounds and the heat and the imagined solitude. She opened her eyes, squinted against the glare of the sun, and reached out for her sunglasses. She slipped them on and did not turn to her companions until her eyes were shielded.

Her lips curved up in a well-rehearsed smile. "Yes. Okay."

The heat clung to her skin as she made her way from the sandy beach back to reality.

First off, sorry that this Sensory Saturday turned into a Sensory Sunday. It has been one of those weekends where the days slip by like sands through the hour glass (and yes, that was a reference to Days of Our Lives).

Ice pellets struck his skin like hundreds of tiny needles. His work boots were soaked from the freezing rain and pulled on him like lead weights. His leather gloves had grown cumbersome from the rain, and he had sacrificed his hands to the icy cold to get the work done faster.

One of the other workmen swore behind him, but the words and their meaning were far off. Distant from his current reality. He worked with one of the other man to lift the window they were installing into place, but in his mind he was already in his shower, jets on full.

The hot water stung more than the ice pellets had, but it was a good pain. His fingers tingled, his skin warmed to a bright red, as though he had spent a relaxing day lying on a hot beach in Nassau rather than a miserable day spent working in Kalamazoo.  

Hot water streamed down his face, down his back, over his feet that had so recently felt like frozen blocks of ice. It--

"Get your head in the game, Richie." 

He was jolted out of the steamy heat of his shower back to the cold, wet construction site.

He grunted and reached for the drill.

 

I have talked about the blog SlushPile Hell before, but there is a new post on there today that is truly great. Inspirational. Awe inspiring.

Basically, it's ridiculous.

Read it and revel in the beauty that is SlushPile Hell.

P.s. A special thanks to the author of SlushPile Hell. You make the days brighter, the grass greener, and the fact that I am not published more bearable.

Here is my first attempt at descriptive writing for my weekly Sensory Saturday blog post. I encourage you to leave a comment as I would love feedback, and I am even going so far as to solicit a descriptive passage that you have written, either for this blog in particular or which was part of a different work.

The chair under me creaks ominously as I shift my weight. Two young men hold hushed conversations on the battered couch against the far side of the room while their peers sit in their assigned desks, fingers clacking on the keyboards.

A young woman pulls her cell phone out of her pocket and sneaks looks at it as she pretends to work. I know she would hide it away if I called her on having her phone out in class; she doesn't realize that looking down into her lap and smiling every so often gives her away.

Another young men types furiously while his friend sleeps with his head down on the desk beside him.

None of them realize that from my position I can hear them all, see them all, and that they don't fool me for a minute.

It wasn't so long ago that I sat in those desks myself.