I try not to read before I write because I don't want to be discouraged or overly restricted. I'll try too hard to avoid elements of another story I won't have a story to write. That and if I read something spectacular I feel way out of my league and I'm trying too hard to be awesome. For instance Sci-Fi Rob's version of Dragon if I had read that first I would have been trying to hard to do something good like that. I personally died and found myself fleshing out a possibly awesome story later when I read his.