Thursday, February 22, 2018

I Wanna Be a Paperback Writer






I love books in the paperback format there's just something liberating about paperback book. I probably really started reading paperbacks in the seventh grade and I started hanging around a crowd of readers. I've always liked to read I just don't read well. Reading does not come easy to me, reading never pass, but I still love the sensation of falling into a book. I struggle to read but I find the process highly rewarding. I went to school, grade school, on the college campus that I graduated from. We were a training ground for potential teachers we called them cadet teachers or student teachers. I often thought we were the guinea pigs for a lot of educational things going on. I worked a number of years in a program called SRA (Scholastic Reading Achievement). This was a graduate of reading program that encouraged the participant to increase speed at which they read as well as the comprehension. I suppose it was a good program but it sure didn't help me in my reading speed. Unless, I was so in and as a reader that exposure to these reading principles levitated me at least to the level where I am now.

In junior high I started hanging with the group of guys that read. One of my best friends at that time got me reading Ian Fleming novels i.e. James Bond 007. One of my other friends turned me onto Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle and Slaughter House 5. I loved the convenience of having the book, the whole book, stuck in my back pocket that went with me wherever I went. I was never alone and always had something to do. I had something to look forward to and that was reading, reading the paper back in my back pocket.

Paperback Writer was released by the Beatles 1966, in June of that year. My accident was in July so I have almost a month of listening to this song which definitely had major impact on my life. I don't know why, perhaps my mother was a big influence on my writing desire but I love playing with the idea of someday being a writer. I wrote poetry because I thought it was simpler than prose. A poem I could start and finish in one sitting. A story or short story, not only did one have to write but then one had a proofread afterwards proofing I found dreadfully intimidating. I did not have the patience nor the skill sets to be a good proofreader. I kind of wish I had had someone who has sat down and drilled these writing skills into me. Only now, at this late stage, I'm beginning to feel I can come to grips with proving and rewrite. I don't know if I'll be able to totally pull it off but the process does not freak me out as it had once done.

I love the whole song PaperbackWriter, I love the concept of expanding the book just because whoever the person is writing for wants more words or changed one way or another. The writer is totally mercenary and I find that totally intriguing. I want to be a writer someday and above all else a paperback writer.
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