I have spent the weekend reading some great books, including:

• 11/22/63 by Stephen King
• Exile’s Return by Malcolm Cowley
• Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway
• Silken Prey by John Sandford

Each book has been a joy to read; each book has engaged me.  I could not put Exile’s Return down forcibly.  It left my hands only when I fell asleep.  Before that happened, I felt admiration for Cowley and the other authors I have been reading and asked:

• Why am I enjoying this so much?
• How have they drawn me in?
• How did they transport me to Africa, Greenwich Village, Paris, Africa, Lisbon and make me feel I was walking the streets, actively a part of and engaging with the main characters?
• What makes these authors great authors?
• What are they doing that I like?
• And, just what constitutes good writing?

Having my iPad at my side, I opened Evernote and quickly wrote a note on ‘Good Writing.’  Here is what I felt were some of the reasons I was reading good writing:

I need to review these and continue to refine the characteristics that defines good writing.  For now, I am going to clip these to the side of my screen and aspire to achieve them.

I am noticeably improving as a writer, but far from the abilities of Hemingway, King Cowley or Sandford!  I will continue to improve.  While not studying how to write, I am a student of writing and continue to learn.  I learned a lot this weekend by reading other great writers.

I wrote 150,000 words two years ago, 350,000 words last year and hope to do 500,000 this year with a target of 700,000 – 800,000 after that.  At 5 million words, I will have my 10,000 hours in as a writer (if you add up the time it took to conceptualize, research, write and edit).  By then, I hope to close the gap just a little between Hemingway, King, Cowley, Sandford and me.

What do you think constitutes good writing?  I want to continue to learn from you as well as other masters of the craft.

Steve Shipley, author of Wine Sense, due out early 2014
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Still Stupid at Sixty (published under my writing pseudonym Blake Stevens)