Some say they’ve written ever since they were a child. Others claim their love of reading inspired them to write or they had a good story to tell. But none of those reasons fit why I started.
It was after I read a terrible novel from a well known publishing house, I thought, I can do better than that. Yep, that’s when I started, and for years I didn’t write any better than that author because I wasn’t sure about the story I wanted to tell.
Now I wish I had his book because I was told at a workshop recently, it’s beneficial to study both good and bad books to see what authors do so you can learn from them. I took that advice with Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient. It’s not the greatest story but it is one of the most beautifully written books.
