Posts tagged ‘reading’
THINK NO EVIL
I have always had an active imagination. If I had had the courage to put a bullet through my head when I first realized the consequences of my thoughts, you dear reader, would have more than five days to live. I suggest, for your own sanity, you put down this story. Now!
Consider yourself warned.
I used my vivid imagination to write works of science fiction and had some measure of success. I was not Ray Bradbury, but I was able to make a reasonable living with my novels with flashy covers showing alien worlds and their weird residents. The occasional scantily clad Earth females depicted on the covers didn’t hurt sales either. I would let my imagination run wild and my pen would follow. I do not know the true extent of the powers, but I fear I may have done some damage light years from Earth.
The first hint of my peculiar ability occurred a month ago. I visited a bagel shop early one morning, as was my habit, to avoid crowds. In my southeastern Pennsylvania community, three people constitute a crowd, four a mob.
I entered the store and found, and much to my satisfaction, found I was the only customer. A husband and wife owned and ran the establishment. They were always there together.
I placed my order, and as I stood idly, a strange thought emerged. How easy it would be to rob this store at this early hour. I could write a mystery. It would be my first attempt at something other than science fiction. My mind was consumed with plotting the crime, and as I waited for my bagels, my thoughts set up the robbery scene. Seven days later, that store was robbed and the couple murdered.
What a strange coincidence, I thought, as I read the newspaper.
A few days after the robbery, I was driving along an interstate highway behind an old pickup truck. A ladder was propped up against the tailgate. I imagined the truck hitting a large bump in the road and the ladder being hurled from the truck and through the windshield of the car following. I switched lanes and forgot the vision.
Seven days later a horrendous accident happened, almost identical to the scene I imagined. It made the local news.
This time I was shaking. Was this just a second coincidence?
I tried an experiment. I pictured a week of continuous rain. We were under drought restrictions at the time, so I thought this would be an innocent and perhaps beneficial test. Exactly seven days later, the rains poured down and rivers overran their banks. I had forgotten about the rivers. Property was ruined. Lives were lost.
To avoid more damage, I went back to writing science fiction. Fiction that I ensured occurred far from this planet.
Then it happened. Two days ago, after I vowed never to conjure up stories about the here and now, but I slipped. I was writing a story about an alien ship traveling through an asteroid belt. Before I knew it, my mind was picturing the asteroid that impacted the Earth some sixty-five million years ago causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. But God help me, my mind wandered and took another step. I wondered what the Earth would be like if an asteroid ten times the size of the one that killed the dinosaurs impacted the Earth.
We have five days left.
THE END
December 28, 2025 at 2:01 pm
WRITERS, WHERE DO THE IDEAS COME FROM?
Where do the ideas writers use to develop their stories they write come from?
I see major differences between producing fiction and nonfiction. For nonfiction the writer begins with a subject which I’m sure involves an interest and creative thoughts. Then comes the research. Sometimes a massive amount of research, but the writer has a concrete goal. This writing demands skill to create a work of value. And to complete a valued work requires writing skill but little imagination. However, the genre of creative nonfiction does require a creative approach to a nonfiction story..
Now for fiction.
In fiction the writer begins with an idea and then creates something from nothing and hopefully an intriguing story. But where does that initial idea come from along with the details that follow? What triggers the mind of the writer to begin down the road to producing a work of fiction.
I feel the answer lies in experiences and observations, which the writer has undergone on the way to developing their work. Some remembered consciously, but most stored deeply in the writer’s subconscious. We all have exposure to various situations, challenges – some won, some lost. But I feel the writer records these, to a much greater extent, than the nonwriter.
Another difference may be that most people are talkers where the future writer is more of a listener. And what they hear accumulates somewhere in the reaches of their brains. Eventually, this accumulated data on a subject of interest, an idea for a story comes into being with details filled in by the writer’s life. Then there is the skill the writer needs to form an effective story. Can that skill be taught or does it come naturally? I feel the answer is both. So many successful writers have gone through the process of an MFA. But look at all the famous writers who possessed great skill without the benefit of an education in writing. There are so many questions which spring to life when considering what prompts a work of fiction. Could we ever answer that mystical mystery of what process goes into creating a work of fiction? The answer is imagination, but is that an answer, or just fodder for more speculation?
What happens to a writer sitting alone with a pencil and paper or a computer and just begins thinking, I think, is a minor or sometimes major miracle.
November 22, 2025 at 3:28 pm
COMIC BOOKS
When perhaps the age of nine or ten, I recall making trips with my father to used bookstores to buy comic books.
The stores are now long gone, torn down and replaced by skyscrapers, but once there was a series of used bookstores, the only ones in the area, huddled together on Market Street, located where the uptown section of Newark began, just beyond Penn Station, the train station and accompanying railroad that bisected Newark. Once you left my area of Newark and made your way to Penn Station and under the elevated railroad you were uptown, walking toward Broad and Market, the heart of Newark, but more on that intersection later.
Off I would go with my Dad to buy comic books. The stores were old musty-smelling rooms filled with piles upon piles of books from creaky hardwood floor to the grimy ceiling. I love bookstores to this day, both old and new, and the smells of the used bookstores take me back to Market Street. The bookstores of Market Street had huge front windows crammed with books, and the store overflowed with books. And somewhere in this maze of books were bags and bags of used comic books. The comics had their covers removed (which might have indicated something illegal) and sold for a nickel each or six for a quarter and we would buy them by the stack.
There would be romance comics for my mother, science fiction and action heroes for me and for the younger kids there would be Nancy, Donald Duck, Archie and more. We would bring home a bundle of comics, along with the musty smell of the store, sit around the kitchen table and divide them up.
Taking part of my stack of comics and hiding some in the bathroom for nature’s calls did not endear me to my family. There was a water pipe running from floor to ceiling on the outer wall and I would hide my comics rolled up and wedged between the pipe and the wall near the ceiling. Of course, they were in plain sight. I just assumed no one would ever look up.
At the age of nine or ten comics were my entertainment; they were my entry to the world of reading and imagination. To this day I lose patience with computer games, get bored with TV and other electronic means of filling your day. But given a good book, I get lost for hours always needing to know what the next page holds.
October 8, 2025 at 2:46 pm
BOOK REVIEWS, AN INTRODUCTION
One of the characteristics often found in writers is that they are voracious readers. I fit that mold. If I go anywhere where there is the possibility of a wait I always bring a book.
I alternate my reading between fiction and nonfiction. Therefore, you will receive reviews on a variety of books concerned with nonfiction topics and genres of fiction.
My hope is that you find some of these books worthy of your attention.
October 23, 2024 at 12:19 pm
On the outskirts of West Chester, PA is an unsurpassed emporium of used books, Baldwin’s Book Barn.
The store, located in an actual barn, is a rambling five-floor store of used books, almost exclusively hard cover editions. A booklover could easily get lost for hours of enjoyment. Name a subject and you will find shelves of books covering that topic.
The reason I mention this bookstore is that I have two short stories which take place in this store. One of which has been recently published for the second time.
Back to my love of this store.
I am intrigued by old books, and this is the place to find a trove of them. I own a few old volumes. My oldest is a book of English history published in 1794. I enjoy holding such a book, letting my mind drift to the era it represents. Considering what life was like and who was alive when that book was published.
On a recent visit I purchased a book entitled Minnesota in the Civil and Indian Wars, 1861-1865 published in 1890. I find value in owning a book published shortly after the event or era no matter what the subject.
An example of this interest is an eight-volume set, not purchased at Baldwin’s, titled The Story of the Great War. The first volume is copyrighted 1916. So, this set of books was not only written shortly after the event but during the event.
This is a true example of current events.
Here is a link to the store.
Baldwin’s Book Barn – Rare, Used, Out of Print, Antiquarian Books, Giclée prints, Ephemera, Antiques, Maps
July 10, 2024 at 3:51 pm
This story was published by Necrology Shorts in January 2010.
THE HORROR AT LAKE HARMONY
It began with an innocent trip to Baldwin’s Book Barn, a store which sold old and rare books. Baldwin’s was located in a rambling five-story barn. Set in the bucolic Pennsylvania countryside, it was my favorite haunt. I was in love with books, the older the better. I enjoyed breathing in the smell of old print and paper and wondered at the people who once owned these old tomes. My favorite time to visit was on a spring night when the customers were few. The store manager opened the barn doors to the surrounding fields, creating a natural setting for the store’s many books stacked in old orange crates. One pleasant spring night I parked in the gravel parking lot. I made my way up the rickety stairs, being sure to bend low so I wouldn’t tear my scalp on the low doorframes.
On the second floor, I walked past a door that was always locked, the door to the rare book room. A faint glow emanating from beneath the door had caught my attention, and then it was gone. My eyes traveled to the edge of the door. It was slightly ajar, a fact that had escaped my attention until that glow caught my eye. I entered and found beautiful leather bound volumes with gold leaf. I wandered among the shelves in the room filled with books I could never afford.
Off in a corner I noticed a slim volume on a table. The cover was leather with black letters; ‘Folklore of Pennsylvania and the Surrounding Area’. I knew some of the local myths, stories that made the tabloids or the local news when they had space to fill, such as the Jersey Devil rumored to inhabit the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey. But this book appeared to be a serious and ancient text. With mounting curiosity I confronted the volume. A ribbon, marking a site of interest, peeked from the bottom of the book and upon being opened, the book yielded naturally to theses pages. With a mixture of awe and curiosity, I inspected the story of the Legend of the Ancients. I sat in a round-backed chair, and with curiosity, soon became lost in the book.
May 23, 2024 at 11:59 am
My old books,
Some two hundred years
Have little value
Except to me,
I wonder at their owners,
Readers long gone.
Gazing into a future
Unknown,
With my words
Hundreds of years gone
Cause the same ponder
Of a lover of books.
February 10, 2016 at 10:31 pm
I want to approach the making of a writer from a new direction, that with reading in mind.
These thoughts are the result of the ongoing question I have: Can imagination be taught? I have pondered this topic in past posts. You can be taught how to write, but can you be taught what to imagine, taught how to provide that spark which becomes a work of fiction. Some writers use prompts to get their writing juices flowing, but I feel these prompts could provide either the imagination trigger for a piece or merely a subject, depending on the individual. The crux of the effort is the individual.
The birth of this piece is the fact we are told over and over that when a writer is not writing he should be reading. As I write this I continue to perform mental gymnastics. If you must be encouraged to read can writing be in your future? For some reason, I have always had a burning desire to read which required no encouragement and feel naked when books are not present or readily available. I’ve always felt that the more vivid your imagination, the more enjoyment you derive from reading, the more vivid your imagination the more brilliant the pictures created in your mind as you read a book. Images which a video game or television show cannot compete with. In this sense, a writer can’t help but be a reader feeling incomplete without a book close by. For that book is feeding what is the life’s blood of the writer – his imagination.
August 20, 2014 at 7:47 pm
If you own one of those new watches that does EVERYTHING, even tell you the time, you have wrapped around your wrist more computer power than went on the first trips to the moon.
I have witnessed the birth and development of the home computer, a presence today in the modern home almost as common as a fork or knife. One fact that constantly amazes me, perhaps because I reside in the population of the well-seasoned is what I find to be the primary use of these machines. That observation is what prompted the birth of this piece.
When we read, one of my favorite pastimes, whether it is fiction or nonfiction we; our mind, our imagination, created the setting of the story, ‘sees’ the story take place. In my opinion, the more we read the more ‘muscles’ our imagination develops. And the more you read the more satisfying the experience becomes. That is my opinion. I cannot speak for anyone else.
The following is pure conjecture and I hope my young readers will correct me if they find fault with what follows.
We are constantly told that the youth of today do not read as much as the youth of the past. Today there is a host of activities to keep the mind occupied. One of these modern marvels is the video game.
I must admit that I have dabbled with the media with my girls when they were young, but an interest never developed. Recalling my limited exposure, the imagination did not come into play. The story line was presented to you visually. It was more or less as if you were watching a television program which you controlled. Your imagination did not grow any ‘muscles’, only your thumbs. Are we raising a generation which lacks the wonder of what an active imagination can provide?
These are the thoughts of a well-seasoned citizen. My youthful readers, am I wrong?
March 29, 2014 at 8:27 pm
Perhaps it is my age or my past or a combination of both, but I am addicted to the word printed on paper. I know my love spells doom for many trees but I am in too deep. I also know that this is the age of the eBook. Some of my work is available in this medium. I am intrigued by the Kindle White, the prospect of carrying a thousand books with you. But for now I’ll stick with paper.
One question I have is, “How well do the eReaders bounce?”
I am forever falling asleep while reading, either in bed or in my favorite chair (I am getting old). When I awake my book is usually on the floor and closed; my place gone. In my daughter, Lynn’s, younger days I would tell her I lost my place and she would answer, “Don’t worry, Dad. It’ll turn up.”
Here are more reasons why I may never switch to the electronic medium. I love the smell of books. I know many of you are also closet book sniffers. When I begin a new book I open it up to its middle and breathe in its scent. I love holding books and being surrounded by piles of them waiting to be read.
I especially love the smell of old books. Some you need not open to gain their odor. The smell of their history bombards you. I have a bookcase full of old books. My oldest is a book of English history from the late 1700’s. I doubt if my old volumes have much value. Why I cherish them is, as I hold them, I wonder who held them when they were new, and how those people lived. I wonder if they appreciated the books scent when it was new.
October 18, 2013 at 5:03 pm
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