Anyone Need a Pair of Ducks?

I tend to be very meta, in that I think a lot about my thought processes. Why do I think the things I think? Why do I have trouble thinking in some ways over other ways? One of the things I often think about, paradoxically, is why I think about things more than I do things. Like writing.

November is always a really tough month for me in "real life" land, so while I sign up for NaNoWriMo every year, I hardly ever "win." This year I didn't get anywhere. Part of the reason for that, though, is that I really hate the writing I do when I "do" NaNo. It feels off, bad, and too hard to fix afterwards. I tend to build in my head first, so that by the time it's on paper, it's a 3rd draft more than a 1st draft, and NaNo short-circuits that process. But I like the social aspects of it, and the frenzy, and the feeling I'm part of something bigger when I participate. Another paradox.


Paradox makes the world go round, however, and is part of the glorious thinking that makes us human. And be forewarned--I tend to harp on human-ness as a writing theme :). What makes us interesting is that we are full of contradictions.

And so, with yet another paradox, I am going to launch into writing again with a major reading project. I've been picking up various indie books as people say "Hey, I have my book available for free this week!" and I've decided to do a little March Madness approach with them and a bunch of other free indie books I've snagged off of Amazon. 32 books going head to head. I'm going to start with openings, and move to bigger and bigger chunks of the surviving book in each round. I'm going to be looking at different things each round, and seeing what works for me. It's kind of a combination reading extravaganza and writing/story analysis game. I'm hoping doing this will serve to kick-start my own book, which is languishing inside me in complete outline form. Or maybe it's just an elaborate procrastination plot. Or maybe it's both. The joy of paradox.

While I won't necessarily read every page of every book due to the structure of how I've set this up, I will indicate with each "battle" if I would have kept reading the losing book or not, and attempt to give some explanation of why I preferred one book over the other.

To the authors of these books if you stumble across this blog (and especially to those I know from G+):  This is about what *I* am looking for in this exercise. It's not necessarily going to be what *you* want me to look for during this. So please, while you are free to follow along, comment, whatever, just keep in mind it's about my journey as a reader, a writer, and an editor, through this particular set of books. It's not about giving reviews or critiques, though stuff I say may help to serve those purposes. If I say anything useful to you, great. If not, just ignore me. If you end up really defensive about my choices or explanations, well, I reserve the right to ignore you too :).