You Are What You Read?

I've been reading Stephen King's It , and I've noticed something. My drabbles have taken a turn for the dark side. Like seriously, I'm freaking myself out here. I thought I'd submit some of them to SpeckLit, so I'm not going to post any before I hear back from them, but this is kind of weird, right?

So I thought I'd try a little experiment: could I use this intentionally with my Victorian fantasy novel? If I read authors from the period, will some kind of osmosis happen through the text? I hope this'll help me with Victorian dialogue and speech patterns, at least. I'm going to do a short story set in Victorian times before I rush into the novel, just as an experiment. (And I need to get some kind of outline done before I start the novel. I wrote about 5000 words of it and then realized it was madness to go on without one.)

I'm juggling a few other writing projects right now, too. One is a Lovecraftian short story for an anthology, and the other is the next Kit Ward story that's threatening to turn into a novelette/novel. I'm at the first plot point and I've got 10,000 words so far, so that would make the finished piece about 40 k, but we'll see.

I need also re-read some Lovecraft to get into the right frame of mind to write the short story, but following King with eldritch horrors might not be the greatest idea, mental health-wise.

What's that? Put down the King book and go binge-watch Gilmore Girls?

Okay, if you insist.