When I sat down to write this blog tonight, I chastised myself for once again waiting until the last minute to start it, but I couldn’t help it,  I lost myself in the pages of Acheron, the newest book by Sherilyn Kenyon.  I absolutely love her Dark-Hunter series and find I can’t put it down until I’ve read the last page.   I know I’m not the only person out there that has this compulsion and I thought it was as good as any topic to blog about, especially for an erotic fiction site….lol.

Whether it’s being introduced to Gulliver’s Travels as a small child or reading Erotic Fiction as an adult, both young and old pick up their favorite book to escape into another world.   I know my love affair with the written word started as a small child.   I remember my third grade teacher reading Ramona Quimby by Beverly Cleary, and in doing so she opened up an entire new world for me; the dyslexic girl who could barely write her own name, let alone write a single sentence.  From that day forward, through the struggles of learning to read, I have had a great love for the written word, and as a mother, I still have the pleasure of visiting Ramona and Henry Higgins while reading to my own girls.

As an adult, I have found while my tastes have evolved from Ramona and Henry, I still find myself drawn to books.   I love to pick up a good erotic romance, or sci-fi book and indulge in my favorite vice.  Now, instead of Ramona, I find myself drawn to the bold heroines and sexy heroes of Christine Feehen, Lora Leigh and a million other authors that I just absolutely love.   My husband often jokes about how our bedroom is turning into a library. Which reminds me, I keep promising him  I will go through them again and weed out before they take over the whole house.

As a writer I find myself grateful there are readers out there just like me, would would rather escape into the pages of a good book than watch the latest reality tv show.

Mostly this is an observation and perhaps a decent discussion topic. All writers have their own style for writing. It happens naturally, I think. We all develop a way of writing sentences, carrying a plot, description etc… I’ve actually written stories with other authors that have shown noticeable differences in voice when I’m writing versus when the other author was writing. I’ve even had editors comment on being able to distinguish when I was the writer and the other author was the writer. On those occasions have had to put a great deal of effort into integrating the two styles so that the story read consistently.

So I found it odd the other day when I noticed that while I have a distinct writing style, if I try to write something while I’m reading something else in my spare time, I tend to begin to emulate the style of the person I’m reading. I don’t really know if that’s because when I get into a book, I really get into a book. I guess to some extent when I’m reading I let the author’s voice get into my head. So I’m just curious if other people have similar experiences and what they think about it…

Leighann Phoenix