That's not how I'd do it.

I recall Garry Kilworth saying, either in an interview or in personal correspondence during my 'Spiral Words' days, that once you become a writer, your enjoyment of reading suffers for it. You're forever thinking "That's not how I would do it".

It's dead true. It was brought to mind this morning after I'd done a critique of a story in the Critters online workshop. I'd spent twenty minutes or so correcting any typos I came across and offering my opinions (for what they're worth) on this writer's story. When I'd clicked on 'send', I thought I'd check out his bio on the Critters website, and there found quite a long treatise on what this guy thought was good and bad about science fiction. He said he'd read Dick, Niven, Pohl, Cordwainer Smith, Clarke, Asimov et al, but found them lacking and, somehow, not quite right. So this is a wannabe with no publishing credits picking fault with the giants of the field. Join the club, bud.

In the past week I've read 'Earthlight' by Arthur C Clarke and 'Lord of the Flies' by Wlliam Golding. Clarke first: I found 'Earthlight' staid and boring. Clarke did some of his finest writing in the fifties and sixties, but this novel I felt was merely a short story with lots of padding. Impressive florid descriptions don't paint a picture on the inside of your eyelids. As for all that soul-gazing, give me a break! I found myself unable to engage with the moon dwellers' plight as Earth waged war with the Fderals, using the moon as a battleground. Now Golding: 'Lord of the Flies' is a terrible book. I don't care what anybody say, it's crap. Pointless dialogue punctuated by those infuriating long dashes, and an almost complete lack of dialogue tags had me tearing my hair out. I'm sure it's a terribly worthy story about civilisation breaking down, with each of the characters representing different aspects of society (oh, very clever) but the story sucks. Or at least the telling of it does. My version of 'Flies' would have complete sentences, far fewer dashes and dialogue tags. An injection of humour wouldn't go amiss and oh, less of those pretty but meaningless descriptions of the scenery too. As Jim Royle would say, 'Classic, my arse.'

The point is, though, I would probably have found the shortcomings (as I perceive them) quite forgiveable five years ago. But now, I expect everything I read to be far better than anything I could do myself, especially when it comes with the weight of Clarke's or Golding's name on the cover.

What shall I read next? I fancy a Pratchett. Now there's someone who amazes the hell out of me. He's got a pile of money bigger than St Paul's Cathedral (his words, not mine) so it's no longer cool to like him, but Pratchett has yet to be equalled in the field of humorous fantasy. I shouldn't think there are many writers shaking their heads and saying "Nah, I wouldn't have done it like that" and a lot more saying "I wish I could write like this!"