Today, I feel tapped out–in all ways.  I’m not feeling very creative, nor am I getting much writing done.  It’s discouraging to have come this far (to the publication stage), then experience such doldrums.  But I rest in the fact that it can’t last too long (oh, please, don’t tell me differently!), and we’ll all settle into a happy medium soon.

So, today, because I’m feeling so non-brilliant (is that even a word?), I shall recommend some of my favorite fiction authors.  If you are a fiction writer (or simply a contented reader), these authors are a must-read.  Reading good fiction is the first step to writing good fiction (somewhere in there, there’s a great correlation if you’re observant and take good notes).  I would go so far as to suggest that you find a book passage you’re particularly in awe of, mark it, and re-type it into a document, so that you get a “feel” for how it’s done.  This is a tangible and kinesthetic way of absorbing information.  Trust me, it works.

So, knowing that I will automatically neglect some, here goes, in no certain order: Ann Patchett, Geraldine Brooks, Marilynne Robinson, Leif Enger, Evan S. Connell, Andre Dubus, David Guterson, Philippa Gregory, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway (of course!), Toni Morrison, Barbara Kingsolver, Ian Frazier, Lorrie Moore, Tracy Chevalier, Khaled Hosseini, Jane Hamilton, Jamaica Kinkaid, Edwidge Danticat, Cormac McCarthy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Richard Russo, Alice Sebold, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Alexandre Dumas, Michael Chabon, Sara Gruen, John Steinbeck, Tobias Wolff, J.R.R. Tolkien, Annie Proulx, Ann Packer, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Jack London, Tim O’Brien, John Murray, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Michael Cunningham, Isabel Allende, Sandra Cisneros, Louise Erdrich, Mark Twain, Jose Saramago, Arundhati Roy, Wallace Stevens, Ron Rash, Yann Martel, Madeleine L’Engle, and all the classics (some of which are listed above).

If you can’t write yet (because of other commitments), at least fill your brain with books from the above list.  Each author has their own strengths.  Draw from them.  Change what you don’t like.  What you end up with is your particular voice, a term bantered haphazardly around writing circles.

Some of my favorite books on writing are: Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, On Writing by Stephen King, Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them by Francine Prose, If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland, From Reader to Writer by Sarah Ellis, Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle, The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner, The Lonely Voice by Frank O’Connor, What If: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays & Pamela Painter, Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft by Janet Burroway, and The New York Writers Workshop’s The Portable MFA in Creative Writing.

That should keep you busy for a while.  It’s taken me years, and I’m still learning every time I sit down to write.  I hope it will continue, because I shall never be bored then.

Happy reading and writing!

[Post image: Auntie Amy with Liliana, explaining her gift of a beautiful pair of bird scissors made by a Russian artist!]