About the author

Conrad Williams is the author of the novels Head Injuries, London Revenant, The Unblemished, One, Decay Inevitable and Blonde on a Stick; the novellas Nearly People, Game, The Scalding Rooms and Rain and a collection of short fiction, Use Once then Destroy. He lives in Manchester, UK.

All content on this site is © Conrad Williams.

Monday, 5 April 2010

Day Twenty-Seven... Reading Matter

766 words.

I have a problem when I'm writing fiction. I find it difficult to read it at the same time. There are a number of reasons for this. A) I don't want what I'm writing to be coloured by the style of the writer I'm reading; B) I don't want to suddenly come up with a new idea for a novel, which happens a lot when I'm reading someone else's fiction; C) I don't want to be distracted from one story (ie. mine), by another.

To combat this, I tend to read stuff that's the diametric opposite of whatever I'm up to. You might suspect this to be Mills & Boon. Or the directions on a seed packet. But realistically, I'll go with non-fiction (I like to read biographies of film stars or directors or writers and I'm also attracted to books about mountains and mountaineering and survival) or maybe short stories. I don't read an awful lot when I'm deep into a first draft. I wish I could, but I can't.

Listened to: There Will be Blood OST by Jonny Greenwood; Vertical Memory by Seed

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