I’m finding that I don’t much enjoy reading like a writer. Yes, I know I need to do it.
After all, it can only help my own craft to be able to look critically at something someone else had constructed and figure out how it works. This deconstruction is something I do all the time in my day job, and I have no problem doing it with movies – part of my mind unconsciously analyzing where the lights were when the scene was shot and where the edits are both visually and aurally in a film doesn’t seem to detract one bit from my enjoyment of the motion picture which is why a long time ago I started asking people if they wanted the film school review or the normal person review – but doing the same thing with fiction seems to sap all the enjoyment out of the story for me. Perhaps it’s just a matter of training. I can still vaguely recall when doing the same with movies wasn’t routine.
So, I’ve been trying to read more consciously, more critically if you will. I set myself an easy starting target: Stephen King. He’s easy not because his writing is less than but because it is so good and so accessible at the same time. I’m just afraid it’s going to take me a while given the size of his latest.
Oh, yes, and there are couple of dribbles of small fiction in the fictionblog with more to come.
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