t.k.o.

fiction infects me, it stays with me long after the book is closed. it always has.

after miss bennett, my thoughts are precise and clever; after earthsea, i sense the secret name behind every creature; after belldandy, i am graceful and step in time to the harmony of a music unheard; after the belljar, i am aware of the rot at my core; after the bard my slang circles around, witty and convoluted and archaic.

it's as if the accent of each sticks to me, sticks to my thoughts and my skill. i dare not write fiction of my own after dickens, he is deadly to my native style, and when i am particularly weak, p.j. wodehousesque acronyms crop up in my paragraphs like toadstool rings.

a writer must read, it is the other half of the practice, but if i am to write i must not read, or risk compromising my work. those books that i love, those stories i return to again and again, i have no willpower to resist them.

my favorite authors win every time.