Greetings and salutations. It is I, Graham.

So a new year, new goals, new topics. I hope that everyone survived the transition and had a great holiday season. I hate that right there at the end we lost two great icons, Anne Rice and Betty White. Such great influences. Betty White was everyone’s slightly off, slightly naughty grandmother. Who can forget her casually and innocently feeding a cow to the crocodile of Lake Placid? As for Anne Rice, she literally redefined vampires and the vampire genre, as well as handing us the modern Goth movement on a silver, bloodstained platter. They will both be missed.

This leads me to this week’s topic, my literary influences. I read many of the classics of scifi, of course: Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clark, Phillip K. Dick, Robert A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert. My mother loved classic scifi. I was encouraged by her to read Asimov and Clark, not so much Dick and Heinlein. I read the entire Foundation series before I was seven. It was harder in the late 70 and early 80s to find fantasy, but I read the Hobbit, all of the Chronicles of Narnia, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and whatever children’s books I may have found at the library. Choose Your Own Adventure books were a staple at our house, and we saved up money for the Scholastic Book Fair at school every year. If it was in print and I could find it, I read it.

The summer before I turned 11, the moment school let out we moved from Alabama to Texas. It was planned to be a long, two day drive, and my parents wanted to make sure my brother and I had plenty of activities to do. This meant a trip to Waldenbooks (if anyone remembers that place), where we were both allowed to pick out three books. I remember that clearly because my brother complained that the books I was looking at were thicker than his, so he should be allowed to get more than three. I have no idea what the other two books were, but I was enraptured by the cover of one book that instantly became one of my trio, the Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks. This book became my bible to sword and sorcery High Fantasy, the measuring stick for all others.

That next year, in sixth grade, I found a new book in the school library that spoke to me on such a deep, personal level that it became practically holy scripture to me. See, I had been in AP classes since elementary school. The Advanced Placement kid from school that is now a burned out adult who gave up because they can’t meet their perfectionist mental standards? Yeah, that’s me. So when I found the book Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, it really spoke to me. It encouraged me. It bolstered me. It changed me. I quickly branched out, and all through middle school and high school I collected and read every book he wrote. I learned the importance of writing proper, deep characters from Orson Scott Card. I respected and revered him as an author, and his books are probably the biggest inspiration I had in wanting to become an author.

Meanwhile, I had been finding that too many authors had been learning the wrong lessons from Tolkien when following in the footsteps of Terry Brooks. High fantasy had become dense and difficult to read. It wasn’t fun anymore. Even the later Shannara books were getting a bit obtuse. I was quickly becoming a scifi fan, slipping away from fantasy. Star Trek: The Next Generation had come out, I was exploring Card, and it was just easier for me to read. I got out of school and read what I could find, what I could tolerate. Then I discovered two authors that reintroduced me to high fantasy: R.A. Salvatore and Terry Goodkind. They weren’t high art, they weren’t even necessarily quality, but they were exactly what I had been missing in fantasy books. They were fun. I dove back in, head first.

Yes, in this internet age I have learned just how problematic some of these authors are as people. Hell, I’m probably going to become someone’s “problematic person” of an author. But I hope they will still be willing to read my work, regardless of what they think of me personally. From Terry Brooks I learned how to bridge the gap between the classics and modern writings of a genre. From R.A. Salvatore I learned to sometimes throw out realism and just have fun with what you are writing. Plus he does write amazing, detailed combat sequences. From Terry Goodkind I learned the importance of making my writing level accessible to the reader. It doesn’t matter how much he may have stolen and how many plot holes he may have had, it is hard to deny that he made high fantasy easier to read. And finally, from Orson Scott Card I learned how to write deep, human characters, and the importance of basing the story around those characters, rather than settings or plot.

So get out there. Find your influences. Revel in the books, regardless of the problems you may have with the author as a person. Enjoy Road Warrior or Lethal Weapon, regardless of your opinion of Mel Gibson. I can loath what Bill Cosby apparently did and still enjoy his standup. I detest what Kevin Spacey may have done, but The Usual Suspects is still going to stay in my top 20 movies. The point is, take your influences where you take them from. Separate out the parts that drive you, and throw out the chaff. Embrace your influences, learn from them, and nurture the positives they gave you.

Don’t forget to love one another.

Graham

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