Reading books while writing

How many of you spent their holiday season getting sucked into some good reads? I know I did… A few too many!

It left me feeling guilty that I wasn’t putting as many hours into writing as I did into reading, at least initially. Then I managed to let go of that guilt, and enjoy the novels.

One interesting thing I found is that, the more critical I am of my own writing, the more I tend to bring that to the table when reading a new book. Authors I enjoyed immensely started to disappoint me, and books I thought I would love, didn’t deliver as much as I hoped.

An example is James Patterson. Last summer, I went through a binge of his novels – the Alex Cross series, the Murder Mystery Club series, independent novels, Private, etc. – and loved the action, the plots that kept you in suspense, the surprising twists. The last two novels I picked up by him over the holiday season had plot holes, questions left unanswered, and an overall feeling of “meh”. I couldn’t tell you their names if you asked me, as I’ve forgotten both