Updated my novel. This song has been playing in my head today.
So today I'm thinking about the advantages of partaking of literature far from the type of literature you are trying to produce. If you are writing a fantasy for disenfranchised teens, for instance, you might spend some time watching film noir from the '50s.
That's my situation. I feel driven to watch movies and read books that have little stylistic similarity to the books I'm writing. I'm writing a distinctly gothic fantasy, basically in the same style as The Crow with Brandon Lee and Underworld with Kate Beckinsale. I've watched those movies and I'll reference back to them periodically when I'm thinking of how mood and imagery mingle. I spend most of my research time on totally distant things, though. Like I've been reading poetry recently--Keats--and taking some cues from that. And I've been watching obscure and less obscure movies--noir flicks from the '50s, H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man and its sequel, Nosferatu, Brom Stoker's Dracula by Scorsese or whoever. It's all providing valuable contribution to what's feeling like a more complete whole, as a result. It feels like doing the right thing.
It is interesting.
