Step One
I had been writing fantasy and science fiction for years before it finally dawned on me that if I was really serious about it I really ought to understand its roots. This was some time in my late 20s, right before the birth of my first child. For many years I threw myself into an exploration of great or influential (occasionally both) and frequently obscure fantasy fiction from the mothers and fathers of fantasy. I dove deep, and by the time I came up for air I had learned an awful lot. I do recommend understanding the ground on which we stand so that writers can better understand how to move forward.
However, I recently realized that while I was reading all that old stuff– some of which was cool, a little of which I loved so much I moved it to my favorites list, and a lot of which was turgid or simply not my cuppa — I was NOT reading a whole generation of literature that had a tremendous influence on a lot of my peers writing today. For instance, I missed out on the whole Robert Jordan thing. By the time I was through with my scholarly investigations, word was out that Jordan had begun to stretch those middle volumes, so I never dipped in.It might be that I would have gotten hooked enough that I’d be frantically reading the Sanderson/Jordan volumes like many of the rest of you.