When You Can't Stop Learning

Currently reading - Born of Night by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Bob Mayer had an interesting post at Genreality yesterday about how beginning writers focus on the wrong things, i.e. worrying about the business side before the craft is up to snuff.

But something he he said still resonates in my head this morning. We should be reading other writers and watching other shows and movies. Pick apart the story, analyze, figure out what works and why.

He's totally correct. I've read The Da Vinci Code and the Twilight series for exactly that purpose. Quite frankly, if those books weren't so successful, I probably would not have picked them up. Dan and Stephenie must have done something to garner that kind of response from John and Jane Doe, right?

Here's my problem though. I can't stoooopppp!

Seriously, DH and I took GK to see Toy Story 3 over the Fourth of July weekend. At the post-movie restaurant, DH asked what we thought.

GK: It was good.

Me: The opening montage was a nice touch, similar to what [Pixar] did with Up. I loved the prison break-out theme in regards to the preschool. I was shocked Mattel's board didn't have a collective aneurysm over Ken running a gambling racket, but Barbie's love redeemed him at the end so I suppose the shareholders wouldn't bitch too much. I thought the black moment was a little too intense for the smaller children, but they tied the story off nicely with Andy playing with his toys one last time.

DH: OMG! You really can't just sit back and enjoy a movie anymore, can you?

Anybody else have this problem? Do we need to start a support group?