On Reading

One of the things I'm going to miss during the finals week cramming - and that I have missed during the semester and during NaNoWriMo - is reading.  If there's one thing that almost all writers can agree on (all novel writers, anyway), is that reading books is important for style development and just plain fun.  It doesn't matter what genre, really - I guess if you want to write erotica, you should probably read a fair dose of erotica before and during your erotica writing experience.  Similar goes for romance, fantasy, sci-fi, and anything else you might want to write, and it's especially important if you want to do a crossover - if you want to do a sci-fi romance novel, that's your choice, but you'd need experience reading both.

There are reasons for this - reading when you're writing.

First off, you can't just put "how to write a romance novel" into Google. Well, you can, but there's a difference between reading the wiki how-to on it and actually seeing it in action.  Besides, the tips in the wiki page are very generic - "create two characters," "end your novel well."  Read to know what those mean: every writer is different, so there will be some variation in how each character is presented, what the plot is, what causes the emotional tension, and such like.

Secondly, read to know what not to do.  Every writer has their good bits and their bad bits.  The trick is to finding which is which - especially in your opinion.  You're the writer; write what you like.  Grammar rules, however, cannot be bent under any circumstances that are excusable if you have an editor.

Read what you know, and what you don't know.  Expand your horizons a bit, and you'll be able to write more and better.  I'd say "write what you know," but that's a piece of advice I have mixed feelings about.  I'm a fantasy writer.  I've never met a dragon.  I don't know any dragons.  But I've written several dragons.  In each of my three mostly-complete novels, and in two that are in progress, there have been reference to a dragon at some point or another.  In four of the five aforementioned works, the dragon is a significant being.  In the fifth, its existence is situational and any other creature could have thrown the characters together adequately.
Anyway, the point is, I've never met a dragon.  I've never met a dwarf.  I've never met an elf.  I don't know any of these beings personally, but I write about them all the time.

That's not the point.

The point is, READ!