Filling my tank. With free books.

I'm trying to read more. I'm a crap reader lately, for a lot of reasons. There's the habit I have of avoiding recently posted works on AO3 while a season airs (because I got spoilered to fuck by AO3 tags before 3a even started), I don't see recs since I flounced tumblr a while back and don't watch my home timeline on twitter during a season either.

I have a couple rarepair feeds bookmarked, but most of it is OOC and uberkinky, which isn't my bag. The odd fic that is relevant to my interests tends to be quickies, short things that I kind of eat, bookmark, and then I'm out of stuff to read again.

Then there's time. I tend to think of reading as a leisure activity, whereas writing is enjoyable while also feeling productive. And I might be a stay at home mum with both kids at school, but holy crap, there's always something I 'should' be doing.

The lack of reading isn't helping my current writing situation. Nothing in, rubbish out, or whatever. Or fill the tank. Or something. I need to fill my goddamn tank.

What I have done, is resurrected my long-neglected Kindle account. Mostly I think Amazon is a bag of dicks for many reasons, one of which is the fact that I have books in there I frickin paid for but can't migrate to a preferred ereader and format (epub, because freedom), so I'll certainly never buy another kindle book. What they do do, though, is make it really easy to find free (as in beer, not freedom, because Amazon) original works.

I now have a kindle (app) stuffed full of original m/m fic. The quality of which will vary, but so far I haven't been too disappointed. It's the same with fanworks, the quality varies, and it's not like I'm out of pocket if I have to flounce something for crap grammar.

I'm making an effort to review things, too. It makes me think and it's kind of a thank you to those authors whose work is free to read.