It's Tuesday and two more days until I take off to the homeland! So -- because my brain has already gone on holiday -- I've decided to skip today's Ten for Tuesday. I'm such a renegade, I know.Last weekend, the wonderful reviewer Rhiana Reads featured me on her blog, talking about how my sleeplessness made me the reader and writer I am today.
So I ask you: who or what influenced you to read or write the books you do?
Big thanks to everyone who has written about my upcoming Blogsplash and to the most recent Blogsplashers: Jamie Burch, Gemma Noon and Alexandra Redisch!
Long winter nights in Northern Minnesota are what made me the reader I am. We had three channels on TV, no VCR, and I had no siblings. My parents would put classical records on the record player (the records were rented from the library), and read or do work while I would curl up under my comforter and explore Narnia or Middle Earth.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favourite things to do to this day is to curl up in bed and read!
I think living in a small town (population 250) where most of the time there is NOTHING to do.
ReplyDeleteI read a lot.
This is also when I wrote the most. Didn't save any of it, but I had a book or notebook in my hand 24/7 for years.
Hi Talli, I've always read a lot since being a young child. And as for writing that's something I did in the womb!! Living where I do there isn't much else to do unless you like domesticated stuff, which I don't!
ReplyDeleteCJ xx
I've always been an avid reader. Living in Kansas has helped bring out my creative side for my stories. I mean what the heck else is there to do here?
ReplyDeleteI've always loved floating off into other worlds in my head, so reading and writing have always featured somewhere in my life.
ReplyDeleteI plan to write about your blog splash. I actually planned to do it today but I realized it's my blood splatter day and I know you don't want to read about that, so I will mention it tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteCD
Talli, I'm on for your blogsplash too, not sure if my previous comment made it through. Please send me the details via the contact button on my blog!
ReplyDeleteD'oh! Just found the form, so have entered in details as requested. Need more coffee...
ReplyDeleteNO, changed my mind again. I will do the post on Friday. Can I take the button for the post?
ReplyDeleteCD
Talli, lucky you heading home, have a great time.
ReplyDeleteI've been reading forever, I joined a library as soon as I was eligible and I can still remember the little blue card and the slip that they put into it when you took your book out.
I read everywhere, I even read during my first labour, epidural!
no wonder my daughter reads avidly, I reckon the first thing she saw was a book!!
I've probably said this before, but I think Daphne du Maurier's influenced my writing style and my love of beautifully written recent historical fiction! Also, my parents, who packed our house full of books so that reading became second nature to me :-)
ReplyDeleteOne of the odd quirks of my mental make up is that I have always suffered with vivid dreams and mightmares. You know the type of dreams where you have to pause for a moment when you wake up, because you aren't sure whether or not it actually happened? I get them a lot. At its worst, it leads to bouts of insomnia, exhaustion and a degree of depression.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, they are also the most fantastic resource for writing. Some of best ideas come from something that woke me up at three am. Often if I've got a plot problem I can't work out, I'll end up dreaming about my characters and, although it wouldn't be accurate to say I miraculously come up with a solution, I usually end up with a great idea that helps me get around the problem I initially encountered.
It is part of the reason i say that I'd write even if I knew no one, ever, would publish or read my work. My brain is geared up to make stories and explore situations. If I didn't write them down, I'd go crazy.
I can't remember ever not reading. I read loads and loads when I was a child/teenager but the authors that stick out are Agatha Christie, Antonia Forest and Alan Garner.
ReplyDeleteI've also always been an avid reader. It took me awhile to realize I could try to write the kinds of books I enjoyed so much. Writing is such a good way to calm an overactive imagination!
ReplyDeleteall kinds of books contribute, but may favorite authors are Kim Harrison and Christine Feehan.
ReplyDeleteKathleen Woodiwiss, I read the flame and the flower so many times i broke the book's spine. I told the story to friends who would gather by my bed(boarding sch) each evening cos I told it in installments.
ReplyDeleteI've always been an avid reader. I was the kid whose 'one more story' at bedtime ended up with my parents falling asleep with the book open after the 100th story. lol.
ReplyDeleteGrowing up in an era when there were few toys available and I had to use my imagination!
ReplyDeleteYou're having a blogfest? Duh, where have I been??? Hmmm, don't answer that, lol.
I finally realized that I have to do something with all the characters that occupy my brain. Life is too short not to try.
ReplyDeleteI think growing up in a house full of books started me off. I was curious about what was in them - they were obviously important if we kept them on shelves and dusted them - and I desperately wanted to learn to read so that I could unravel their mysteries, travel to different lands and have adventures.
ReplyDeleteWhat started me writing was not being able to find find the exact story I wanted to read when I was 10. So I sat down and wrote it.
Two days... are you the sort of lass who is packed ready to go and are bouncing around the flat, or is everything you want to take still in your washing machine? I am the second option sort of girl, and wish I was the first!
ReplyDeleteAs for your question - so many things. Reading - I wanted to escape, and Writing - I wanted to be in control. Sad but true. :)
So many writers inspired me from the classics (Shakespeare, Bronte(s), Austen, Dickens, Tolkien) to the contemporary...Cormac McCarthy, Keri Hulme, David Mitchell, Neil Gaiman. However, it was Robert Frost and LM Montgomery that made me want to write stories.
ReplyDeleteHmmm... maybe long winter nights! Have a good trip!
ReplyDeleteAll of the wonderful books I read as a nerdy little girl inspired me to write! Also, meeting great blogger friends like you who are AWESOME and getting PUBLISHED doesn't hurt! Have an amazing trip!!!
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your funny post on Rhiana's blog.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to thank my elementary school librarian for making me take out chapter books.
I'm kept awake by the stories in my head, night after night after night after night...
ReplyDeleteEventually they need to be writted down. I have no idea where they come from.
Love of reading made me want to write books, specifically books I wanted to read.
ReplyDeleteI started to write to give a voice to the underdog - the less-than-gorgeous, the nerdy and the physically imperfect. What made me want to do it was reading the hundredth novel where the heroine had 'eyes just a little too large, and a nose just a little too tip-tilted'.
ReplyDeleteYeah, she sounds a real dog. And I got tired of the literary fiction that to deserve love you had to be perfect. So I started to write about those of us who aren't. Real people, in other words.
Oh, and I've never been able to stop reading.
I am constantly inspired by the books that I read, and have been that way since I was little. I love reading a variety of authors and genres! Hope you have a great trip! :)
ReplyDeleteNot sure! I was always drawing as a child, so I guess my imagination was just drawn to fantasy tna science fiction.
ReplyDeleteSafe travels, Talli!
I think being in care at a young age and then being the only child with a foster family for a while made me a serial day dreamer. The old cliche of believing my parents were movie stars or mega rich is true!
ReplyDeleteThe books that led me to be passionate reader were Black Beauty by Anna Sewell and The Stand by Stephen king.
Have a fab time!
My insomnia certainly makes reading a lot of books easier.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm the writer I am today - as cheesy as it sounds - because of life. I use every experience and emotion I've had in some way in my work.
And, JK Rowling, the Harry Potter books, were such a staple in my childhood, such a huge part in my life that I know she has greatly influenced me.
Hmm my biggest influence is boredom. That's how I wrote my manuscript in a month. I was bored outta my mind and snowed in for two out of four weeks!!!!
ReplyDeleteI practically grew up in a library and read anything I could find. Life changing books were: Gone With the Wind, Jane Eyre, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Time and Again, and more, so much more. Carson McCuller's books and stories changed me, I felt a real kinship with her writing.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoyed murder mysteries. Mystery of any kind, really. So I guess that's why I'm writing them.
ReplyDeleteAlso love Alfred Hitchcock's old movies. I think he influences me as well. Or I hope he does:)
Shout out for your blogsplash in my Wednesday post tomorrow!!!
ReplyDeleteHave a fabulous trip, Talli!
ReplyDeleteI think Stephen King made me a reader... mind bendy stuff you couldn't put down. I loved being scared.
I've been inspired by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. To an extent they combine science with the supernatural. Usually, in the end they come up with a scientific explanation. I take things to the next level and introduce the two in a head on collission that no test tube will be able to quantify. Lots of fun. Never a dull moment. Who will win? Well, stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteVery cool ... thanks for the reference to my blog. Every little bit helps. Itry to visit as many blogs as I can every day. But 50 - 100??? I don't think so. 30 a day is a good day for me.
Stephen Tremp
You're a natural born reader! I like how you'd go clubbing & then get home & start reading. Now that's dedication!
ReplyDeleteI was raised by a reader so I think it's genetics...:)
J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series inspired me to write -- but the particular kind of books I write: the authors who have the most influence on my writing are Diana Wynne Jones, Megan Whalen Turner, and Patricia C. Wrede. :)
ReplyDeleteBut there are many new YA authors out there whose works I love, and whom I'm also learning from.
My blog has influenced what I read. I keep getting publicists and people sending me books in a wide variety of genres. So now I've expanded my range of books.
ReplyDeleteA need to escape got me started into reading and writing.
ReplyDeleteI'd have to say my dad. He was an avid reader. I read everything, even the newspapers and magazines we had stacked on our coffee tables. Sometimes I wish I could be a non-sleeper like yourself so I could read even more!
ReplyDeleteMy influences come from my muses, life and adventures of life darling xo
ReplyDeleteMy mother loved books. She also had one at hand. I loved curling up in the chair opposite her beside the fire and we would share a pot of tea and just read.
ReplyDeleteThe authors I read as a child influenced me, got me thinking like a writer and wanting to create the way they created. I loved Stephen King, which is funny 'cause I don't write at all like him. But his imagination is so fantastic. I wanted to be like him.
ReplyDeleteHave a great holiday!!
Being shy and curious probably influenced me to read. Wanting to stop the characters talking inside my skull influenced me to write! :)
ReplyDeleteHave a great vacation! (I expect pictures when you get back. Hee, hee.)
ReplyDeleteMy love of science and history really come out in my fiction. Even when I don't want it to it's always there, becoming a big theme. And I've always been a big reader. I started reading at 4 yo (so the story goes) because I was too impatient to know what was going on in a book to wait for my mother to have a chance to read it to me.
Cheers,
Jackee
Everything's made me the reader and writer I am today. I know. That seems like a cop out but it's true. It's hard to isolate just one influence as being more influential than any other. It's all part of the mix that results in me, I'm afraid. :P
ReplyDeleteReading Harry Potter is what interested me in writing, but what influenced me was the possibility of changing the world in some small way. Cheesy, I know, but here I am!
ReplyDeleteHave a great trip! As of late, I've been influenced by Dorothy Parker and the French author, Anna Gavalda.
ReplyDeleteWhenever i can't sleep I always read too! I have read avidly since the age of 4 - having parents who read a lot helped. I loved Narnia, Anne of Green Gables, Elizabeth Goudge, Stig of the Dump. Susanna of the Mounties - lovely Canadian books my mum had as a child. So many I couldn't list them all!
ReplyDeleteHi Talli .. sleepless nights are not a problem .. but I've always read - probably more search and find - ie information .. which is perhaps now why the blog is like it is!
ReplyDeleteI need to read more & catch up on those books I've missed .. can I with those I want to read .. perhaps with podcasts or ebooks .. time will tell ..
Have a wonderful time back home .. Hilary
SE Hinton's The Outsiders and Thomas Hardy!
ReplyDeleteOh wow you're off on holiday soon!! How exciting!!!!
Take care
x