Whispers While I Write
- Tom Barnett
- Mar 5
- 1 min read

It's funny. For the past decade or so, I've avoided reading fantasy because I didn't want to take the chance of it influencing my writing. Now that I'm taking a short break before returning to my next book, I've decided to go back and read some of the ones that first drew me toward the genre. It was the Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander that first hooked me. It's been about 45 years since I last read them, and it felt like visiting old friends while i read. Then I picked up Edding's Belgariad, and I couldn't put them down. Now I'm reading Dragonlance while the wind howls outside. And do you know what I've discovered? It doesn't matter that a lifetime has passed since I last read those stories. Even if the characters they held have drifted from my conscious mind, they still retain enough voice to whisper to me while I write. Taran Wanderer certainly made some suggestions in how Bruce Grimble turned out, and Emelia McGeehee would certainly have given Polgara the Sorcerous a run for her money. I guess it's true what they say about there being nothing new under the sky, only endless echoes of our forgotten stories rippling out across time.
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