Thousands of authors, millions of books. You're missing good ones. Hell, I read 200+ every year and I'm still missing good ones.

(June 28, 2018 at 8:05 pm)The Gentleman Bastard Wrote: Thousands of authors, millions of books. You're missing good ones. Hell, I read 200+ every year and I'm still missing good ones.

I don't have time to read anymore, which is primarily the reason I have limited myself to my two favorite authors.  

I barely even have time to write, which is what I want to do more than anything.

Not trying to say you're making a bad choice. Just that there's lots out there to read.

(June 28, 2018 at 8:10 pm)The Gentleman Bastard Wrote: Not trying to say you're making a bad choice. Just that there's lots out there to read.

No doubt. There's also a lot to watch on television.

I've reached the point where I have to realize I cannot experience everything. I have to focus on what is most important, instead.

Reading a lot is essential to writing well. Anyone who tells you different is a brick brain.

I understand the desire to get more of a reading experience you know you liked. But I have to say discovering a new author who surprises you in a new direction is a bigger thrill for me. If you enjoyed the first contact subject matter in a book like Shogun, you can have that again but with surprises by reading either The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zooet by David Mitchell or in a sci fi format in Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow (which has a sequel, Children of God). Ms Russell's books involve first contact with an alien species on their own planet. The surprise is that there are two sentient species on that planet.

(June 29, 2018 at 12:57 am)Shell B Wrote: Reading a lot is essential to writing well. Anyone who tells you different is a brick brain.

Not sure I fully agree with you on that. I'd say it can certainly help, but I read very little and most opinions of my writing have been very positive.

I suppose it depends on what you’re writing. Moreover, I don’t just mean fiction. If you read a lot of anything, you’re good.

Just ~ a hundred pages into Pearl Harbor, by Craig Nelson, and I'd already recommend it to anyone interested in the raid.

(June 29, 2018 at 1:23 pm)Jörmungandr Wrote:

(June 29, 2018 at 12:57 am)Shell B Wrote: Reading a lot is essential to writing well. Anyone who tells you different is a brick brain.

Not sure I fully agree with you on that.  I'd say it can certainly help, but I read very little and most opinions of my writing have been very positive.

For prose your writing is aces but have you tried your hand at fiction?  Personally, I can't even tell a joke straight let alone put a story together to make it interesting.  But like you my prose got some recognition.  When the philosopher Fred Dretski was at Cal for a year I took his theory of knowledge class and got high marks on the three papers and the only A+ I received while I was there.  So I asked for a letter of recommendation from the professor in case I decided to apply to a graduate program.  In it he said that he and his teaching assistants agreed that my writing was at least the equal of the graduate students taking the class.  But when it comes to building a case I doff my hat to you Jorms.