Reading as Writers

This will be my last post before I hand it over to the much more eloquent Dale Long next week.

Today, just opening the book at random, I found I’d completely forgotten Dave recounting seeing the Ramones.  How, unlike all the other bands that wanted to be anti-establishment, yet still fashionable, the Ramones were the real thing.  Crap clothes, crap equipment and ugly as sin.  And how, without even the benefit of the full sound system, still managed to sound better than the other bands.

Hey! Ho! Let's go! The Ramones in all their ugly glory

He also talked about how striking it was that the massively negative reaction of the audience, who threw garbage and insults to such an extent that the band eventually unplugged and left the stage, was much more of a reaction than they had for the bands they actually liked.  They expended more energy in trying to get the Ramones to leave, then to beat the crap out of their few supporters in the audience than they did in getting any of the other bands to do an encore.

The Ramones, of course, have since been slotted into the category of seminal band.  They, through just wanting to make some noise and having very little skill, money and opportunities, turned the music back to a simpler, more primitive format and paved the way for so many after them.  This was a band that had so little confidence in themselves that most of their songs don’t even have a solo.

So, again, turning it around to writing, tell me about the writers you enjoy.  There’s the slick James Pattersons and Danielle Steeles.  There’s the Stephen Kings (the self-proclaimed Big Mac and fries of the literary world).  There’s the mid-list writers who do well, but never seem to reach superstar status.  Then there’s the smaller writers, who may actually be the better, more visceral writers and may never get any recognition, not even after they die.  Of course, there’s also the ones that should simply unplug the word processors and leave the writing utensils in the mug and find something else to do with their time.

For me, I admire Stephen King because he was a megaseller from the get-go, just continued to get bigger despite Hollywood butchering the bulk of the movies they made from his books, lost some relevancy in the 90s, then came back with a series of books, both fiction and non-fiction that reestablished his talent.

I admire Jack Ketchum because he’s a mid-list author who likely will never break that tag, yet writes some of the most hard-hitting, unflinching stories I’ve ever read.

I used to admire Chuck Palahniuk.  Never the greatest writer, but always one that got a reaction from me.  Then he started trying to write like some fictional, over-the-top Chuck Palahniuk and effectively parodied himself and left me with nothing but ambivalence to his writing.

I admire many different authors for many different reasons.

Who, as a writer, do you admire?  And why?