To be a great writer

You need to love every inch and thing and burning morsel of word, you need to love books, every piece of book, every age of book, every tasty piece of book. You need to chew on words, swallow them spit them out. Suck on the spines of discarded library love, put knife and fork through textual machinations of Machiavelli and Proust. To be a genre writer you need to love it, love genre, love all those old dusty retro futuristic tomes, love every spaceship blasted, every troll kicked in, every single magical sword and gods descending to slay the world, every made up city, every burned and battled war in space and beyond, everything that is part of it, part of the architecture of this world with spice and saints and mad children running naked through streets afire.

In this love comes the skill. Without this passion, there is no skill. There is no reason. Not with writing. Writing is such a pointless task that it requires a burning, breaking, heart singing love. For it to be done great, good, amazing. I’m not talking about recycling here.

Books ask for only one thing of readers, and writers. Only that they be devoured, and in their devouring, loved them.