Whe I first got serious about novel writing (in High School) I took some advice from a James Michener book and wrote my rough draft from beginning to end without stopping to plan or create any kind of outline. When I went back to re-read, I could see right away that the biggest weakness of my prose was its sparseness. There was a prounounced need for me to slow down and really paint each scene, character and environment.

My challenge was thus much different from that of many writers I'd known or read about. Whereas others were generally having to cut a lot of material between drafts 1 and 2, I had to really elaborate and BUILD UP my novel. Looking back, I can see that my writing tendencies had a lot to do with the way I read.

I was an impatient reader when I was younger. I often skimmed through descriptive passages in order to get to dialogue or action sequences. As a result, character interaction and conflict were strong elements in my first few books, but my descriptive content was too thin.

Much of our education as writers occurs subconsciously. Every time we read, whether it's articles, short stories, novels, poems or essays, we absorb so much that we don't analyze at the time. Ever get heavily involved with reading one certain author and then find yourself having problems avoiding that author's distinctive voice in your own writing? That's what I'm talking about.

Among the positive influences of reading are an increased innate understanding of pacing, building mood and sustaining conflict. Another is enhanced vocabulary. I had a peculier experience with my last novel; five or six times, when struggling with a passage, I would get a word in my head that I had no conscious knowledge of the definition of. When I'd stop to look up the word I'd inevitably find that it was the most appropriate for whatever I was trying to describe.

Just in case you think I'm making this up, I'll list the words I remember learning in this fashion: recalcitrant, ubiquitous, insouciance, and fey.

Some part of my mind had encountered these words in books somewhere, absorbed the context and other associations and filed all these impressions away in storage - all without any conscious thought on my part.

Seth Mullins is the author of "Song of an Untamed Land". Visit his complete blog at http://www.writingup.com/blog/seth_mullins