The Art of Creative Reading . . .

As you can see from the subtitle of this blog, it’s about Reading, Writing, and Publishing.

Because of an on-going survey of reader desires, writing gets most of the attention.

But, checking the Top Tags widget in the left side-bar shows “read” = 20 posts, “reader” = 40 posts, “readers” = 16 posts, and “reading” = 51 posts; though, I’m sure some of those numbers overlap; and, this post will add another post to each of those categories…

There are two special posts here about reading that a friend said were so “technical” that they couldn’t even come up with a comment; though, they apparently liked the posts: What Happens When We Read? ~ Part One and What Happens When We Read? ~ Part Two.

I’ve had to constrain my normal desire to read with abandon for the last long while because I’ve been involved in writing an important series of books.

When the next one is published, I’m going on a reading sabbatical with my Kindle :-)

As some of you know, I’m the Events Manager for Book Island in the virtual world Second Life.

Every Saturday we have Readers’ Chat, a fun and wide-ranging free discussion of any and all books as well as surprising sessions about the act of reading itself.

Last Saturday, someone shared a link to the blog Creative Reading by Wouter Hanegraaff, Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.

There are only 8 posts on the blog and I’m hoping some of you are interested enough to visit and, perhaps, induce Wouter to write more :-)

His quote in the banner of the blog is interesting:

“‘As academics we are expected to write and publish, but we are not supposed to waste our time reading.’ This remark by a colleague—as absurd as it is true—inspired me to start this blog. Yes: as an academic in the field of the Humanities I spend much of my time reading, and on this blog you can see how that works. If scholarly writing has any value at all, then the reading that precedes it deserves respect as an integral part of the creative process that leads to knowledge and understanding.”

If all this talk of reading has gotten some of you writers fidgeting, why not read the past post, How To Read Like A Writer :-)
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Dear Reader, — Do Long Sentences Still Have A Place In Your Life?

Naturally, I’m not just addressing the Reader in this post—writers are the ones who make sentences; so…

Dear Writer,

Do long sentences still have a place in Your life?

I must let you know Shalon Sims’ blog gave me the prompt for this post.

She quotes a sentence from Pico Iyer as example:

“Enter (I hope) the long sentence: the collection of clauses that is so many-chambered and lavish and abundant in tones and suggestions, that has so much room for near-contradiction and ambiguity and those places in memory or imagination that can’t be simplified, or put into easy words, that it allows the reader to keep many things in her head and heart at the same time, and to descend, as by a spiral staircase, deeper into herself and those things that won’t be squeezed into an either/or.”

That sentence comes from an article in the Los Angeles Times, The Writing Life: The point of the long and winding sentence.

Pico says, in that article:

“‘Your sentences are so long’, said a friend who teaches English at a local college, and I could tell she didn’t quite mean it as a compliment. The copy editor who painstakingly went through my most recent book often put yellow dashes on-screen around my multiplying clauses, to ask if I didn’t want to break up my sentences or put less material in every one. Both responses couldn’t have been kinder or more considered, but what my friend and my colleague may not have sensed was this: I’m using longer and longer sentences as a small protest against—and attempt to rescue any readers I might have from—the bombardment of the moment.”

Not even having to go near the Realm of Twitter, writers of blogs are frequently advised to break-up long blocks of words—use bullet-points—fracture the flow—all in the name of the agitated, distracted, time-sore Reader…

In my own reading experience, my favorite long-sentence-writer is a Persian-born man who studied at Oxford, Shoghi Effendi.

Even though I’m a seasoned reader and even though I sometimes have to read his sentences more than once, as a writer, I can see no other way Shoghi could have produced the effect he does if he chopped-up his literary effort.

Once I got used to the sense profluence produced by his long sentences, I realized some of the intricate yet crucial connections between punctuation and thought.

Here’s just one of Shoghi Effendi’s long sentences:

“A community, relatively negligible in its numerical strength; separated by vast distances from both the focal-center of its Faith and the land wherein the preponderating mass of its fellow-believers reside; bereft in the main of material resources and lacking in experience and in prominence; ignorant of the beliefs, concepts and habits of those peoples and races from which its spiritual Founders have sprung; wholly unfamiliar with the languages in which its sacred Books were originally revealed; constrained to place its sole reliance upon an inadequate rendering of only a fragmentary portion of the literature embodying its laws, its tenets, and its history; subjected from its infancy to tests of extreme severity, involving, at times, the defection of some of its most prominent members; having to contend, ever since its inception, and in an ever-increasing measure, with the forces of corruption, of moral laxity, and ingrained prejudice—such a community, in less than half a century, and unaided by any of its sister communities, whether in the East or in the West, has, by virtue of the celestial potency with which an all-loving Master has abundantly endowed it, lent an impetus to the onward march of the Cause it has espoused which the combined achievements of its coreligionists in the West have failed to rival.”

Was that “too” much for one sentence?

Would it really have the same effect if broken into shorter sentences?

Is it technology that’s driving so many writers to accept the contention that readers want short sentences?

Is it something in the fabric of a world going insane at ballistic speed?

Is there something inherently wrong with long sentences?
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What Should You Read Next?

How do you choose what to read next?

Intuition?

Ask a friend?

Browse a bookstore?

Browse a WebSite?

Go to a library?

Well, I found another way—based on other readers’ favorites and used over 10 million times…

And, it’s called, ever so appropriately, What Should I Read Next? :-)

I’ve checked it out and it seems to have some merit.

What I’d really like, though, is for you to check it out and come back and let me know what you think in our comments.

O.K.?

Good :-)
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Our Comment Link Is At The Top of The Post :-)
For Private Comments, Email: amzolt {at} gmail {dot} com
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Readers, Writers, Publishers ~ Can We Have A Win-Win-Win Situation?

It’s no wonder, in a world plagued by corporate media and international tensions, that the flux in the way books are created, distributed, and absorbed would be cast as a “war” between the three protagonists.

It’s obvious, without writers, readers and publishers would starve.

So, let’s assume we’ll always have folks who feel they Must write.

Will we always have big publishing houses?

In a previous post, Will Traditional Publishers Survive?, I asked the question, “Do you agree that the Digital Revolution is just one more ‘adjustment’ the traditional publishers need to consider?”

Will readers suffer from the surge in self-published books?

In the post, Are Readers The Winners In The New Publishing Game?, I said, “I do believe that, eventually, readers will have an exceedingly easy time in finding exactly what they desire; and, that they will become the primary ‘gatekeepers‘ in the Book-World.”

It’s certain that writers who take a non-traditional approach to publishing have to find ways of reaching their readers.

And, traditional publishers may be paying closer attention to readers’ real desires.

In a recent GalleyCat article, Publishers To Invest In Reader Data For Marketing, it’s said, “…that almost 71 percent of publishers agreed with the statement, ‘To be successful, the publisher of the future must have a database of individual customers it can have a relationship with and even contact directly.'”

It’s fascinating to me that many writers are already making sure they can contact and have a relationship with readers…

Do you think traditional publishers will eventually form meaningful relationships with readers?

Can you imagine a world where readers have real input to the decisions publishers make?

Are writers fated to become their own publishers?

Is it conceivable that, eventually, readers, writers, and publishers can all Win?
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Overview of The New World of Reading, Writing, and Publishing

I’ve written many posts about new opportunities for readers, new challenges for writers, and new business models for publishers.

I’ve linked to many other sites to give a rounded view of the transformation we’re going through in the Book-World.

I’ve found a wonderful article that’s a great summary of most of the changes and we’ll get to that soon.

First though, while trying to find, amongst the 330 posts on this blog [edit on 25 Dec 2012: 552 posts now :-)], appropriate ones to link-to in this post, I decided to use my own search function ( it’s in the upper right of the blog :-)

For posts about readers, check out this link about Reading.

For posts about writers, try this link about Writer.

For posts about publishers, look to Traditional.

There are other search terms you can use but these seemed appropriate for this post.

While scanning my Google Alerts I noticed an article in Ecommerce Times by Jeff Kagan called, How the E-Book Is Reinventing the Book Business, but it’s not merely about e-books.

Here are a few excerpts:

“Just as the iPod changed the music industry a decade ago, e-books are changing the publishing world right now. The rule book is being rewritten, and lessons in success and failure are coming from new and unexpected places.”

“I wrote a book in the 1990s. By the time I wrote my second, a year and a half ago, the industry had changed. Now it has changed again. And we are still just in the first inning of this new game.”

“Understanding this new world can be complicated. Some of these publishers work with both real books and e-books, while others just work with e-books. How you get paid from each is different as well. Understanding this changing industry can be a challenge to wrap your arms around, but this chaos is where new leaders are born.”

“Yesterday, publishers would have to preprint books in the thousands and try and convince bookstores to display them, front and center, in the hope they would be sold. This did not play to the author’s advantage. After a while, they would disappear, making room for the next wave of new books. Limited real estate in stores.

“Today, things are much different. Today, there are publishers who will print one single book at a time. A customer finds the book online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or tons of other sites, orders the book, and a single copy is printed, shipped and delivered to the customer in about a week.”

“This e-book revolution is changing the book publishing space quickly and completely. Whether you lead, follow, or are lost in the chaos of this new revolution is the only question. Readers love it. They have the choice of buying the old-fashioned way at a store, buying a book online, or buying an e-book instantly.”

There’s much more interesting information in this article, for readers, writers, and publishers, and I urge you to read the whole thing.

Plus, it’s so well-written that I’d recommend careful attention while reading—it seems like a simple overview of existing trends while it actually could be seen as a “manifesto” for that change :-)
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