Literary influences

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Who influences your writing style? I look at the way I write sometimes and think I am mongrel. I know I have piss poor grammar and punctuation and have no claims to be a writer, though I did at one time have meager aspirations as a poet/novelist. Short lived and ill-conceived it was. What has survived of my lexicon derives from a mish-mash of Solzhenitsyn, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Leon Uris, Ayn Rand, Heinlein, A. Norton, Ludlum, Le Carre, Trevanian, Lustbader. Natsume Soseki...

I know my amalgam of words is a polysyllabic lexicon of BS, and the words don't usually fit together prettily but it is mine now.

I never developed a taste for the likes of Stephen King, Robert Clancy or any other of the modern day genre of yarn spinners. I no longer have interest in any form of fiction, most especially conspiracy related, or apocalyptica that exists today.

Who has influenced you?

I'm also a noob at writing, but I do practice and write quite a bit. My biggest influences are the authors I read the most and my favorite stories or works.

My most read authors are and they are nearly all fiction:
Andre Norton
Dan Simmons
Jack Vance
Roger Zelazny
Alan Dean Foster
Christopher Rowley
Terry Pratchett
L.E. Modesitt Jr
A Lee Martinez
Larry Correia

Specific Works --
Enchiridion by Epictetus
Book of Mormon
Bible KJV
Mahabharata
The Guardians of the Galaxy(original team)


Outside of literary influences, I also pull inspiration and ideas on what I'm writing from other media. Movies, Television, Music, and Art.

In no particular order:

Mark Twain
Harry A. Franck
Sinclair Lewis
John O'Hara
Ayn Rand
Bill Bryson
Patrick O'Brian

I'm not much of a writer, but my favorite short story is by Anton Chekhov. It's usually called Misery, but I first encountered it under the title of Heartache.

You can read the story on-line at http://www.eldritchpress.org/ac/jr/045.htm.

I think my style of writing has been most influenced by Stephen King and Robert E. Howard, who both are known for their ability to paint pictures with words. While my writing style bears no resemblance to H.P. Lovecraft's, I still consider him to be one of my greatest influences. Also, the plethora of short story writers who have never achieved fame, but whose work is very memorable in horror fiction magazines, very much influence the subject of my writing.