Sanderson has dominated my reading lists this whole year. A part of me doesn’t like it. No offense to Sanderson at all, but I typically like to vary my reading. I’d often alternate between genre and never read two books form the same author or series back to back. Why? Maybe there is no good reason but I like to think it keeps my writing mind sharp and ensures that my voice doesn’t drift too far towards another’s voice. My whole life I’ve felt a bit like a copycat and there are long tracts of my early writings where you could almost guess what book or author I was reading when I wrote a story or a passage. I wasn’t stealing ideas, just to be clear, or at least I hope I wasn’t, just voice, rhythms, and affectations.
I’ve steeled my writing mind against that, and Sanderson hasn’t been bleeding into my voice despite the amount I have been reading from him this year.
Even so, I’ve read a lot of Sanderson this year. I’ve also written a fair amount on this blog about him. So why have I read so much Sanderson? I don’t have a gun to my head. I don’t have too many people in my life that are also reading or even have read Sanderson.
Mostly, I’ve missed out on so much from him and I am just trying to catch up before it passes me by. If the Cosmere got too much bigger before I had a chance to read most of it, there’s a good chance I would never read it at all.
There’s also an element of a fear of missing out. That fear has driven me to a lot of places that I had no business being. Books, games, and movies that a truer version of myself, one not governed by external forces, would have never picked up. But sometimes that FOMO is worth something. Sometimes it draws you into something that you would have never tried otherwise and then you find that you like it.
Sometimes the zeitgeist is more poltergeist—a spirit chasing you through life–and sometimes it’s just right. Sanderson fell into the latter category and I’m almost caught up. You’ll see Rhythm of War down there and soon I’ll return to Mistborn for the final book of the second era, a couple of secret projects will follow (Yumi and Sunlit) and then after a few scattered shorts I’m done, hopefully in time for Wind and Truth.
All this is to say, that I have Sanderson on the brain and since this is an extension of my brain, Sanderson Sanderson Sanderson.
Quote of the Moment:
“The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings
Current Reads:
Sixth of the Dusk by Brandon Sanderson
Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson