A different kind of Ride on the Reading

A couple days ago, we took “A Ride on the Reading” as part of our Seven Days of New Years resolutions. 

This particular New Year’s resolution contains a double-entendre – but no, it’s not risque ... and not even risky. 

Taking a Ride on the Reading, on Tuesday, was all about “Train of Thought” writing – riding on the train out of Imagination Station, with a stream of consciousness plume of stream trailing behind. 

Today, “Taking a Ride on the Reading” concentrates on the long-e pronunciation: It’s all about the fine art of Reading – reading a book, for example, a magazine, eZine or blog.  Heck, read a billboard if it fuels the creative juices. 

I’ve mentioned before several excellent books and authors.  I’m old.  I tend to read fiction. 

Because I find myself with less and less control over the nonfiction world around me, I find it comforting to retreat to the realm of make-believe.

Used to read Time.  Ain’t got the time no more. 

Used to read Newsweek.  Find them weak on news and long on opinion. 

Used to subscribe to the Denver Post.  Switched to the Rocky Mountain News because they had a better sports page, and I wasn’t reading the news so much any more.

Then the Rocky died, so I try to keep up with the Nuggets, Broncos and Rockies online as best I can.  (I used to follow hockey and boxing, but gave that up as the lines between the two began to blur) 

As the days and years pass, I suspect more and more subscriptions and interests and illusions about my impact on the world around me will begin to dissolve into the stream of heavenly consciousness that I hope envelopes me at the bittersweet end. 

I promised, today, a Ride on the Reading – with a long-e.  I implied that a “Fiction Book List” might be at hand, or a list of recommended reading to replace the disappearing sources. 

But I lied. 

What I’m just completing is a Ride on the Reading – with a short-e.  Words that are virtually unreviewed, unedited and unchanged as they’ve rolled from brain to fingertips to computer to blogpost. 

There’s too many instances of the word “I” and there’s a bunch of too-personal commentary that needs to be worked out.  The point of view dithers, and there are too many “There are” sentence constructions. 

It’s not tight, concise, perfectly grammared and grampawed.  To be a work of art, well ... this and 99.44% of everything that falls to my fingertips probably needs hours, weeks and years of polishing. 

But it does “sound” different to my ear.  It’s breezier.  It’s a different person, perhaps, that presents himself. 

And it does, I hope, illustrate the value of letting words roll onto paper.  Because even if they’re not perfect, the words sometimes surprise you. 

And that’s a good thing.  You can work, as a Writer, with surprise.  Maybe I’ll scratch out a book list some other day. 

Next: Lessons

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