As I may have mentioned before, one of my favourite books is JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. It is in fact a collection of stories, telling the history of Middle Earth, the first one being the Ainulindale – The Music of the Ainur – being an account of the creation of Arda.
An artist by the name of Evan Palmer has produced a 54 page watercolour comic of the Ainulindale, and it is rather stunning. Well worth a look for those fans of The Silmarillion like me.
I’ve always been a voracious reader, even from the youngest age. I devoured the written word, and what I read wasn’t of much concern. I even read encyclopaedias before I was ten.
I always used to just read to read, to educate myself and for fun. I’ve noticed all that has changed since I started to take my writing more seriously.
Now I do something I said I’d never do; I analyse the stories I read. I’d gone all the way through school without analysing, believing that it would ruin the read. Maybe it happens to other writers too, or actors watching movies or other professionals; they look beyond just the story and look at how it is crafted.
Whenever I read a book now I am always looking at the language used, how the stories are structured, the devices and forms in which they are written. I don’t know if it will make a me a better write but it has changed the way I read books forever now.
Mist and Shadows 