Introducing A Reader’s Life

For the last two years, under the banner of A Writer’s Life, I’ve been tweeting daily writing tips - gleaned from all over: interviews, biographies, personal experience. We’ll shortly publish the first collection, 365 Writing Tips, on the Internet. Time for a change – actually more of an addition - and since reading is half of a writer’s job, I’m next putting up daily tweets under the banner, A Reader’s Life (while not abandoning the tone and direction of what I’ve been doing).  It might as easily be called Pot Luck or Pot Pourri or Bran Tub because I’m dipping my hand into whatever material of any kind - cultural, political, sporting, current news, old newspapers - in which I’ve been immersed, or of which I’m fond, or by which I’m stimulated. Or simply want to share. Books, and any art form; discoveries and happy returns; new or favorite writers, poems, music, paintings - all will have one thing in common: a capacity to ignite in me the desire to get back to the desk and work, work, work. 

I’ve always had a rag-bag mind, like the drawer in every kitchen where we keep bits of string, old postcards, interesting bottle-tops, screws that have fallen out of something but we don’t know what – everyday miscellanea. Recently, to try and organize that mental drawer, I attempted the exercise of trying to write down – as it came to me – any quotation, reading memory, word origin, movie scene, painting or painting detail, music playing in my mind – in any one day. Failed. Then I tried any one hour. Failed again! I couldn't even count the number of sound-tracks rolling through my brain – was it a 16-track desk, a 32, a 64? Don’t know, still can’t count because new ones come in as I’m counting. I suppose I’m just not Zen enough!

What I think I’m trying to say here is – I have no idea what will appear every day in A Reader’s Life/A Writer’s Life until I write it. It could be anything from anywhere – a useless fact (if there is such a thing), a recollection, a quotation, a bygone day, a snatch of a song. When I have written it, I hope you’ll enjoy it, and maybe find in it the vibe that caused me to send it out from my Twitter page in the first place. And please share yours with me on Twitter or make comments here. Have a wonderful 2012!