Since last week’s broadcast was a treatise of sorts on this idea I have about Creative Reading (reading in a deliberately participatory, imaginative way where you get to keep the shiny stuff), I figured this week I’d give you some examples of this kind of reading in action. Here’s a peek inside my own creative reading and writing journal, and a few ideas for engaging creatively with what we read.
RIFF ON A LINE
I liked the figurative yet concrete nature of this simple line (from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel, Dream Count), and I wanted to try it myself. So I did! On the spot. Right in the quick of my jazzy feeling about it. Start wild!
LIST INTERESTING WORDS AND PHRASES
I keep all sorts of lists in my reading journal. This page has a list of adjectives (that I clearly haven’t added to in a while!) and a list of what I think are permissible dialogue tags, plus a note to myself about why I think they work. I’ve learned I can’t always trust that I’ll *remember* what a random note is about later, so if it feels important I’ll often explain why.
It also has a list of things with interesting names! Like JAKE BRAKES and THE BUREAU OF INCUMBRANCES. Will I use any of these words, tags, or names later? Who cares! I like them right now, so I’m keeping them. 💛
And of course I have several lists of my favorite class of words: VERBS. Action words! And of course I have to get weird about it. But you know you kind of want to honeycomb something. I mean if you could? You would? And you might just want to aftermath something else, after.
The fact that I wrote “inertia” to try as a verb (it’s not a verb, we know this, but I love being a rascal about parts of speech, bopping them on the head and stealing off with them into the wrong part of a sentence) and then noticed and wrote “ironic!” (because: action) makes me laugh a little every time I see it. Experiment! And! Play! There’s no stand-in for playfulness in your creative practice. Remember to enjoy the process! You have to remember yourself because nobody else is going to remind you—everybody takes it all way too seriously. (But okay, maybe I am going to remind you.) 💛
And here’s a list-type I bet you’ve never seen before, but I am so amused and fascinated by these, I always jot them down and I’ve collected pages and pages of them at this point. . .
LINES (and ideas) YOU LIKE
There are many, many pages like this in my journal—webs of treasures from specific books I’m reading. I love gathering these up and honoring their loveliness by adding some doodles or color, reading the lines over and over as I go.
On this page, my friend Deborah’s book, Underneath the Occipital Bone (poetry) is sharing space with Alexandra Horowitz’s book, On Looking (science/nature). Loved them both, and where better to add to our collections than from the books we love? I can turn this off, but I love to have it on.
Here’s another one. Charles Simic! That delightful literary trickster. Everything, of course, is a mirror if you look at it long enough.
FIGURING OUT WHY YOU LIKE WHAT YOU LIKE
Here’s a funny one:
STUFF YOU CAN LEARN FROM
There are a lot of these sorts of pages in my journal, too—moments I like, and think I can learn from this. I want to have the same effect on my readers that this is having on me right now. My follow-up questions for myself, always, are: Why did this snag me? Why is it working? What exactly is the writer doing that I like? What can I learn from it? Sometimes I articulate it in writing, and sometimes I don’t. Often, honestly, I just talk out loud to myself about it in the moment. That works, too. 🙂
WORD POOLS
Okay, so this is a list I’ve been adding to for quite some time. It has one rule only: words I like the sound of. If I like the meaning too? Even better—but the only rule for this one is sound. And wow, I love this page of words. It’s probably my favorite page in the whole book. Reading it calms and delights me in equal measure. Words are good medicine, friends! Start a pool with whatever parameter(s) you like.
Catastrophe. Popsicle. Scoot. Jubilee. 💖
Crocodile!
NAME-COLLECTING
This has become much more of a thing for me ever since I started getting serious about writing fiction. I LOVE naming characters. It’s just so fun and weird and really drives home the fact that I’m weirdly creating this entire person from my head. It makes me feel like a magician! So I collect names I can peruse anytime someone new pops up who needs one. I may or may not use something from the list—I just like having them around.
(The off-stage portion of this list has a bunch of dog name ideas on it, too, for the record. Grover, Ramona, Rutherford, Peach. 🍑 Though we all know everybody does love a big flopsy dog named Steve.)
TREASURE CHEST
My Creative Reading & Writing journals are filled with treasures. They are precious to me, and such a special part of my creative practice. I hope this show & tell was interesting and maybe gave you some spark or inspiration to get more involved with what you’re reading. Or at least was amusing! If anything particularly struck your fancy, chime in! What lingers?
The last shot I’ll share is something I found in the very back of a past creative reading journal as I was preparing this broadcast, and it rings just as true now as it must have when I scrawled it down on that final page. Having filled that particular chest to bursting and run out of room completely, I stuffed one last shining little thing inside:
Long live the wild, multidimensional experience of reading. ✨📖✨
Love and light from the margins,
ali✨
Thanks so much for reading, and hello new subscribers! I’m a multidisciplinary artist, bookseller, and educator. If you liked this post, one of the best ways you can support what I’m doing is to chime in, subscribe, share, or click the heart button. 💛 If you’d like to check out more of my work, here’s my website! I also reluctantly post on Instagram but am working (albeit slowly) to make the move over to Bluesky.
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