Every writer has been influenced by some author or another–or possibly plenty of authors. I don’t think we can avoid it, to be honest. We spend too much time reading, soaking up the words of others. Learning from them, I think, is a natural and important part of being a writer.

We learn our craft by seeing what others have done. Most of us start by mimicking our favourite authors, in a way, before developing our own unique style.

Even once that style is fully developed, however, there’s still likely to be some bit of what we used to mimic that stays with us. And I think we owe it to ourselves, and to those authors, to recognize that.

Today, I’d like to kick off a new series of posts by talking about an author who influenced me: Meg Cabot.

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