By Brendan O’Meara
There’s this great quote from William Faulkner, who admittedly I’ve never read, where he says:
“Read, read, read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read!”
I love that he even says read trash, though we should be spending most of our time reading the great writers. Imitating them. Playing with them. Having conversations with them.
It’s through this process that you find your voice, but asking yourself why Jesmyn Ward focused so strongly on the white pit bull mother in Salvage the Bones, or why Dave Eggers wrote his characters in the way he where he did in The Parade.
Because art is intentional and the finished product is a document full of decisions, what to leave in and what to leave out.
So read and pay attention to all the decisions.
