Randolph From his latest Orbital Operations newsletter:
All of which is to say: so much of this absurd job is feeding the compost bin. I have spoken in the past to so many writers, not even limited to beginning writers, who focus on prodigious word counts and/or deep narrow research wells. Or just reading the medium they’re working in to the exclusion of all others. Read everything. Read the news, every day, twice. Read books, fiction and non-fiction, modern and old, and outside your specific interests and loves. Read plays. Most of us don’t live near theatres that do more than summer stock and panto, but there are a lot of plays out there that reward reading. Read long articles and essays. Learn something new every day. It all goes into the compost bin. You’ll thank yourself for it, down the road.
Fantastic advice.