David H. asked Mary Robinette Kowal:

In an episode of Writing Excuses recently, you were praising Neal Stephenson's SEVENEVES (which you narrated). Especially with a book as long as that, do you ever find yourself imitating their style when writing your own stories, or are you pretty good at mentally separating your writing and narrating?

Mary Robinette Kowal A little of both. For the most part, narrating and writing use different parts of my brain BUT my brain can't help being influenced by what it takes in. So I'm also influenced by what I read for pleasure, the films I watch, and the people I hang out with.

With SEVENEVES I was really concious of his use of punctuation and I think that has probably crept into my own work, in terms of writing longer and more complex sentences. But... but I also tend to only pick up the things I admire. So, the times that I AM influenced, I always count it as a win.

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