Read what you love, not what you think you should love
Read what you love, not what you think you should love
By Joel McKay
Read what you like, write what you like, not what you think you should like.
Sounds simple but it’s hard to do in practice. Let me unpack this a bit.
One of the more annoying habits of social groups—particularly in the arts, but I’ve witnessed it just the same in sports and athletics—is the impression a newbie is left with by some that they need to have a certain amount of knowledge or experiences to gain entry to the crowd.
I’ve seen this pop up in literary circles, sometimes horror, whereas readers or new writers are led to believe by some that they’re not “legit” or don’t have anything meaningful to “contribute” unless they’ve consumed certain texts, typically it’s obscure stuff but also classics such as Mary Shelley, Shirley Jackson, H.P. Lovecraft or Henry James.
The funny thing is, the purveyors of this toxic acceptance culture are almost never veterans of the game anyway, but rather hangers-on who’ve refined the classic social art of gatekeeping.
For what it’s worth, my experience, though limited, has been that the most accomplished in any profession are typically as humble as apple pie.
You think any of the above-named writers were welcome in every literary circle they wandered into? Think again.
And, in full transparency, I’ve read all those authors and can’t say I’m a huge fan of any of them.
In fact, I couldn’t make heads or tails of the language in The Turn of the Screw, but I respect that it’s a meaningful and important text for others.
I enjoy Lovecraftian stories and cosmic horror, but typically only the stuff written by authors other than Lovecraft.
The point here is as creators we must resist the urge to consume media simply because it’s in vogue or accepted by some pseudo-intellectual elite.
Yes, a vast number of celebrated texts in any genre have rightfully earned their place of recognition, but that doesn’t mean you have to like them.
Nor, importantly, does it mean you need to familiarize yourself with the work as entry-level knowledge to create your own.
Go write.
Create.
You can write horror and not even read horror. Read Vogue or Better Homes and Gardens for God’s sake; plenty of inspiration to draw from there.
In the time I’ve been on this sufferable journey into the literary arts, I’ve learned two things:
- You need to read a lot
- You need to write a lot
Those two truths necessitate a lot of time, energy, and solitude.
Try not to add to the suffering by forcing yourself to dive into texts that don’t sing to you or you consume simply to have enough working knowledge to participate in a conversation.
If said conversation amongst a group requires deep knowledge about something that doesn’t sing to you, those aren’t your people, that’s not your scene.
Read what you love. Write what you love. To Hell with everything else.
And embrace the words “Did Not Finish” – if you get a few chapters in and it’s not working, shut’er down. That doesn’t mean it’s a bad book; it only means that book isn’t for you, and you wouldn’t have gained much from it anyway to assist with your craft.
Do the math.
Let’s say you’re currently 30 years old, and you will read 50 books a year for the rest of your life.
The average life expectancy in the U.S. is 77.5, according to the CDC.
That means you’ve got 2,375 books left in you, give or take.
Sounds like a lot, but it’s not actually.
Read what you love, and let that serve as the catalyst for your craft.
Happy writing.
- About the Author
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Joel McKay is an award-winning author, journalist and executive from Northern British Columbia. His fiction includes the horror comedy novella Wolf at the Door, the anthology It Came From the Trees and Other Violent Aberrations and a host of short stories published in various anthologies and online.
