Thanks! I agree completely. Writing without reading is kind of like drawing without a reference, come to think of it. I have no idea how you'd write a story backwards, it's hard enough writing one forwards (at least for me)! Dialogue can be difficult, especially when steering characters in certain directions, which can come off as forced... the hardest thing to write is the first line of dialogue in a scene, if you get past that then it becomes a game of passing the "ball" back and forth between the characters, which isn't so bad.