Sucker

The business of learning to write? Did Hemingway have research texts on how to build a character? Did Hamsun need help with his plot? I think not. But then again, did they have Amazon?

True compulsive procrastinator that I am, I went looking on Amazon for some suggested titles from another blog on better writing skills. I justified it as needing to improve my work, and who could argue with that? I tried and evaded the entire argument by clicking on more. Before I could listen to my rational self my shopping cart had gobbled up:

"Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them (P.S.)"
"The Plot Thickens: 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life"Noah Lukeman;
"Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life"Anne Lamott;
"The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers"John Gardner
"The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile"Noah Lukeman; "On Writing"Stephen King
"Plot & Structure: (Techniques And Exercises For Crafting A Plot That Grips Readers From Start To Finish) (Write Great Fiction)"James Scott Bell

(the messy text was from cut and paste, I was too lazy to retype).

So this begs the question, why? When will I write if I am reading these? Are they going to distract me from my original ideas? I know I need tons of work, just doing my own editing has shown me how my writing needs to be more concise and clear. But I have buyer's remorse, and feel dumb for spending the money and the time. There were actually more in my cart that I weeded out. So much for that. Dumb dumb dumb.

One interesting discovery was Amazon Shorts; Noah Lukeman had a 26 page Short on paragraph sections and breaks. Kind of neat.
--------------------------------------------------------------