Squawk Radio

I'm trying, Eloisa, but yours wasn't the most compelling blog title, either.

I'm opposite you. When I'm in Deep Write, I'm too distracted to read anything else, because my mind is so focused on my own story that it can't get into anyone else's. That's when I start looking at magazines, which provide 90% of my research materials. I subscribe to tons, many of them men's interest to get the male POV on stuff (Esquire is a particular fave). The stack in my office right now is--and I just now measured--waist high. (Obviously I'm not having trouble with the writing at the moment, except for not wanting to do it because we're finally having a beautiful day, and I'd rather be outside walking in the woods before it gets too buggy.) So I'll start flipping through the mags, reading articles that look interesting or which might provide story ideas or some kind of character trait. I'll clip pictures of rooms or outfits that look like ones I want to use, or pull pages with artwork or advertisements that might inspire a good cover. Ultimately, during times like those, I think I'm absorbing stuff that will go into the NEXT book, not the one I'm working on at the moment, because I already absorbed the stuff for my work-in-progress when I was flipping through magazines during the LAST book while I was distracted.

And when I'm not in deep write, but still writing a book, I find that I read less romance and more my other favorite genre--mystery. Or memoirs. I've developed quite a taste for those. Or if I do read romance when I'm writing, it'll be historical or paranormal or a traditional Regency. I don't read the type of books I write until after I'm done with a book. Then I'll take a coupla three weeks and devour all kinds of contemp.

Elizabeth