I mean, yes, if a book is written in the 1970s, it's bound to have some off-color remarks about the majority and how the majority views minorities. The writing still comes off as racist, sexist, and homophobic. Saying that it "comes off as" is being too generous, because it is all three of those. Sidney Sheldon's contemporaries were better than that. Some, at least. I can't say anything positive for John Updike. I guess I'll just have to read more books published around that time and see where, really he falls.

I dunno. I don't want to only read things I agree with and put myself firmly in an echo chamber, but then again there's just... a line.

One of the most important exercises for a writer, I've been told, is reading extensively. Of course the same people who tell you this will also tell you to avoid adverbs, but as this is an informal, secluded area of the internet, I don't feel the need to follow the guidelines set forth by those people.

Of course, said people probably also hold Strunk and White in high regard. 

Hah.

At any rate, in 2011 I've resolved to read a lot of books. I'm naturally a voracious reader, but I've never kept track of just how many I'd read over the course of a year. So this year I'll set a goal, though it's a modest one compared to Sarah Weinman's 462 in 2008. I'll try for 200.

So far, I've only read one, but I devoured it in less than five hours. That's not bad. I doubt I'll be reading as much once the semester starts, but I figure I can get at least ten in before then.

This year, I also want to finish one of my novels. I've got several in progress, all at various stages of completion. All of them are genre fiction, nearly all of them fantasy. I don't really want to write derivative work, either, and I'm at a point where no matter how I look at what I have so far, it all seems uninspired. So finishing a novel this year will be far more difficult than reading books. Hopefully with the exposure to new writers and new styles I can maybe refill the metaphorical well, although I'd never thought it was dry before. Of course, that was before I had the worst professor ever to receive tenure teach a class on creative writing -- the class that was supposed to be the most important to my college degree. But I've heard most creative writing professors take the same stances as he did. Still, they can't be half as bad as he was (and is).

Dude, if you're going to be writing literary fiction and you're going to include a slave's diary (wait, what?), you can't use current vernacular for the past's. But, as he's said in the past, "If I wanted to do research, I wouldn't write novels."

Fucking hack.

And this is the part where I find I've somehow gotten onto a soapbox. Whoops.