Read any good books lately? Rate them here

[Clueless Morgan]

Not sure I fully agree with you on that.  I'd say it can certainly help, but I read very little and most opinions of my writing have been very positive.

For prose your writing is aces but have you tried your hand at fiction?  Personally, I can't even tell a joke straight let alone put a story together to make it interesting.  But like you my prose got some recognition.  When the philosopher Fred Dretski was at Cal for a year I took his theory of knowledge class and got high marks on the three papers and the only A+ I received while I was there.  So I asked for a letter of recommendation from the professor in case I decided to apply to a graduate program.  In it he said that he and his teaching assistants agreed that my writing was at least the equal of the graduate students taking the class.  But when it comes to building a case I doff my hat to you Jorms.

In college I got a damn near perfect score on a paper I wrote on the design of the Rialto Bridge in Venice. The only marks that were deducted were because I didn't use the citation format the professor wanted.

I suspect that actual practice writing fiction would have more of an effect on my skill than reading would.  That writers advise reading does not necessarily mean that they are correct on that score.  I'm sure reading has a positive impact, but whether it's as core as practice or native talent is, of that I'm not so sure.  I rather suspect that writers opining on what made or broke their writing are as knowledgeable as anybody else is on the subject, which is to say, "not much."

My suspicion is that if you know how to analyze the fiction and why it's working when it is and why it isn't working when it's falling flat then reading a lot would definitely be helpful. It expands your knowledge of what other people are doing, exposes you to creativity and gives you examples of what to do and what not to do.

If you don't know how to analyze the work you're reading, you might improve your own writing by reading lots and lots but implementing what you're learning from that reading would be more hit and miss.

JMO.