One of the problems with reading

is getting too involved in the author's style, the way they see the world, so much that it begins to affect your own writing, observations, and sentences. Perhaps this is a good thing some of the time. Shake things up, don't get too attached to one style, imitation while you improve, all that. Perhaps it's not a good thing if you're already 75% finished with a book? I dunno. But I like Jean Rhys, even though my writing and hers are nothing alike. That's why I like her, I think. Because she can get straight to the heart of a matter, while I go off into pages of exposition. And she can move from one character's mind to another on the same page effortlessly, while I give the reader vertigo when I try to do that.

I heart Jean Rhys, that's all.