MONDAY MUSINGS — WHAT TO READ

There's a lot of advice that writers should read what they want to write to see what others from the same genre are writing, from both today and from the past. I have some trouble doing that. I'll explain why I think that is in a moment. First, let me explain what I do enjoy reading for pleasure.

Many of my favorites I owe to my roommate my senior year at the University of California Santa Barbara, the late Mike Treman. He was also my fellow pioneer original member of the UCSB Crew Club, a recreational club engaged in competitive Olympics-style rowing races. That was 54 years ago, with our first competitive season in 1966 (yikes, I'm getting older). We rented a duplex in Isla Vista which should have had three renters, but somehow none of the prospective occupants seemed interested in sharing with us and our two rowdy dogs.

We were life-long friends, and I still miss him since his passing in 2017 from Pancreatic Cancer. His loss was all the more poignant, since I had already lost my father and a brother to Pancreatic Cancer. But I digress.

Mike is the one who got me interested in Issac Asimov's Foundation Series, as well as his Robot Series. Then he turned me onto the great Robert Heinlein. I've since read every one of his great stories several times, even a couple that were published posthumously.

Even after we graduated, he led me in 1969 to Michael Crichton's premiere novel, The Andromeda Strain. I was hooked on thrillers—it was the first work of fiction that had a bibliography. Wow.

That led to discovering Tom Clancy's works, and later on, David Baldacci and Steve Berry. I originally wanted to be a thriller writer, even wrote one that I may resurrect at some point as a romantic suspense. Anyone who's read my first novel may be able to guess the title.

To round out my favorites, in high school I got addicted to Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I must have read his "Complete Works" at least five or six times, always a pleasure.

So—now that I write romances, why don't I like reading them for fun? There are two reasons that I can think of .

First. I'm “that guy” who goes to craft or art shows and says all day long, "Hey, I could do that myself." It didn't matter that I never would, or that it would likely take ten times as long as that artist or craftsman did to learn how to do it well. I think some of the "I can do that myself" attitude subconsciously still lingers.

Second, the only romances I would be interested in reading would be contemporary romances, and then I would be analyzing it to death rather than just enjoying the read. That would take all of the fun out of it as reading for pleasure.

One more reason might be that too many stories these days include elements I won't include in my own works, such as sex, profanity, cruelty, and other things that seem to be a staple of many best-selling works these days. That's a personal choice, but one I have no hesitation to make, either in my reading or writing.

And let’s face it: since I'm working on at least five or six books concurrently in my typical multi-tasking manner, who has time for reading?

I suppose one more potential reason for not checking out other authors' romances is that I seem to have such a focused vision of what kind of stories I want to write. I don’t much care what the latest trends are, or what’s selling this week. I know what I want to write. I'm not really interested in what will be the most commercial and sell the best. It's not about the money for me. I just want people to read and enjoy my work.

Speaking of work, I better get back to it. All those great books aren't going to write themselves.