My Name is Nick and I live in New England. I'm an aspiring writer and obsessive reader. I write all types of short stories and don't want to stick to any form, genre, or style. I've tossed around and sketched out many storyboards for a novel, but haven't yet set up to tackle writing one yet. I want to study the fundamentals a bit more.
But first, I thought I'd share a bit about what I read. I read to improve my literary perspective, and hopefully incorporate a bit of everything I find interesting into my own work. Like music, I don't stick to any one genre. I'll read pretty much anything except romance (just as I listen to pretty any music except Country). Some of my favorite authors include Irvine Welsh, Hubert Selby Jr., SOME Chuck Phalinuk (sp?), and Isaac Asimov. BUT, I have only really seriously focused on my reading and writing pasion for about a year or so now, so I have a long list of authors I want to read. I also enjoy a lot of the independent publications, such as one called Barrelhouse, which is a publication of short stories and poetry from independent, non-famous writers. Right now I'm reading Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, and just finished The Metamorphisis by Franz Kafka (but only skimmed through a lot of the professional literary interpretaion that consisted of the bulk of the book).
In addition, I usually have some sort of non-fiction book on the subject of writing going on at the same time. Right now, it is Ray Bradbury's Zen and the Art of Writing, which is okay and seems to be best used as something to read a short excerpt from before beginning to write, as a type of motivation. My next project in this area is to go through the college text book called Writing Fiction, by Janet Burroway. This was recommended to me by a published author, and is used in most professional writing courses. The seventh edition is the newest and retails for about $80, but I was able to pick up the sixth edition used for only 7 bucks from Amazon, and have heard it is nearly identical. If anyone else was interested in picking up a copy and going through the book together, sort of like an online class but without the cost, please let me know - I think it would be a great writing project.
Last but not least, I would love to share my writing online and have it critiqued. Not sure if there is a formal group or forum for that on here, but would love to participate as both a writer and critiquer in the group for short stories!
This sounds like a great place to be, looking forward to it. And please again let me know if you're interested in developing some sort of schedule or plan for working through a project such as the book I mentioned above, or anything else in the way of a writing project.
Thanks everyone, thats enough rambling from me for now!
