Reading For Fun

STATUS: Working on a contract.

What’s playing on the iPod right now? BEEN CAUGHT STEALING by Jane’s Addiction

I’m not sure why but writers are sometimes surprised that agents read for fun. Granted, we don’t have a whole lot of extra time to read for pleasure but all of us still do it.

So of course we read for fun. After all, it’s this passion that got us into the biz to begin with. Not to mention, in a slightly off-beat way, it’s also part of our job to stay current on recent releases. We track what’s hot and why. We read what hits the bestseller lists or what is getting a lot of buzz.

This becomes super important when reading partials. Why? Well, there are leaders in each genre and try as they might, some writers can’t help but be a little derivative of the leaders in their field. It might be unconscious—the mimicking of a premise or a world building construct or what have you.

As agents, we need to spot this. We need a work to be wholly original and not just a really well done copy of something that’s currently out there.

How else can we know this unless we read?

So what’s currently on my nightstand? Scott Westerfeld’s UGLIES. My sister-in-law, a Middle School Principal, has been raving about how much she loves these books and how my nieces really enjoyed them as well.

With these endorsements, it behooves me to pick it up and see what the fuss is all about.