Random Thoughts

Here is my first post on the newly-minted VeloWebLog. As noted on the “About” page, my intention is to wander beyond the main cycling focus of VeloWeb to indulge the wider interests of my restless mind. As such, this first post is appropriate to the project. I hope you’ll enjoy the ride.

I once heard a Canadian writer ― I forget who it was ― on CBC Radio, say that he never edited or rewrote his prose, that it spilled fully-formed onto the page, ready to read.

I found the claim incomprehensible at the time and more so now, even as my own writerly skills presumably mature.

No sentence I put together ― including this ― escapes the need demand for revision and excision. The product of disturbed sleep, at dawn begs the editor’s knife. This paragraph is a cut-and-paste of scattered foolscap, collated by hungry blind slaves.

Writing for me is a kind of triage for thoughts that would otherwise founder under the avalanche of random data that cascades through my head. Sometimes there is a kernel of sense or nascent wisdom mixed with otherwise vague, unformed ideas, feelings and unrelated detritus. The nuggets must be dug from the deluge.

Is it any wonder that my office ― the external mirror of my cluttered cranium ― is a confused mixture of bicycle shop, library and photo studio?

Perhaps our systematic scribe had better mental organizational skills, not to mention a superior built-in ― for want of a better word ― thesaurus. I need to shake my unformed ideas out onto the page (or screen) where I can impose spatial order and meaning to them.

Otherwise, it’s all just gibberish.

Tagged as: editing, ideas