“Read, 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! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it’s good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out of the window.”
–William Faulkner
I keep finding myself drawn to old stories by authors long dead. The most recent writer being Flannery O’Connor. She wrote a large set of short stories, one set eventually was assembled into the famous yet difficult (for me) novel Wise Blood. I grabbed the thick book, The Complete Stories from our local library and have been reading each short story, one by one. Much easier to digest, ten to twenty pages at a time.
Flannery O’Connor works are fierce and bold, while portraying an America long gone (thankfully). So much to be learned from the old masters. Every day, I feel myself ever so slightly transformed by ghostly fingers rewiring my brain.