Most writers begin as readers. But once we start writing, we forget about reading. If you want to be a great writer, you must read. Read all types of works, including the classics you hated to read in high school. You can learn a lot about writing from the classics, and if you let yourself go, you can be thoroughly entertained by them. But if you want to be a romance writer, then you have to immerse yourself in the genre. Find out why people love reading these stories over and over again. Find out what makes a happy ending. What makes a woman irresistible? What makes a man charismatic? If you want to write horror, which I’m going to do someday, then you have to read horror to find out how plots unfold. How, when and why to have someone killed. I know it all seems at random, but there is a reason for every killing in horror. Every character must die a certain way, for a certain reason, at a certain time. That’s what makes horror scary.