bus-time reading

I'm riding to work on the bus, partially because I'm cheap and don't want to pay for a tank of gas every 4 days. (Which tells you it's a mighty commute, because the ol' '96 Camry actually gets pretty good mpg.) So I use that time to read and write in my "writing" journal.
The journal's become just about the only journal I write in. It helps to be a captive audience. If I'm to judge from my fellow riders, the acceptable activities on the Valley Metro buses in Phoenix are to
1. Read a large fiction book
2. Sleep (not a good idea if you're only going a couple of miles, but some people try it)
3. Talk very loudly to other passengers about the shelter they live in, the 12-step program they're working, or their spiritual paradigm (which is not the terminology used)
4. Watch the world go by.

So any way, this journal and these books. Zoning out on the bus is actually an excellent time for me to fish for ideas. I always used to get my best ideas in the shower or on the run, neither of which was especially conducive to capturing the ideas on paper. Bus-riding for inspiration actually works pretty well. I've also actually composed a couple of humor columns for Echo (the magazine I used to edit; it seems everyone who has ever worked there maintains some sort of connection to it) this way.
I've been working my way through Eric Maisel's Deep Writing on the bus over the past week. It's one of his earlier works on the creative process, but brief enough to pick up and put down without losing the thread of meaning, and interesting enough to try and actually follow his suggestions. For an atheist Jew psychotherapist who's written more than 30 books, he actually sounds like a fun person in his books. This book follows five fictional writers (from the angst-ridden chaotic twentysomething novelist to a computer geek avoiding his dissertation) as they move through writing things that matter to them. At first I found the use of fictional characters in an instruction book sort of annoying, but now he's drawn them so well I find myself itching to find out what they do next. I suppose that's the whole point.
I got a couple of books yesterday and today on structure and organization by Dave Fryxell. I need it. For someone with a degree in journalism and as much experience as I have, I can't talk story structure worth crud sometimes. I keep getting mired down in articles where I over-research to the point of having TOO MANY points of view. Anything that helps me focus these things, so that they aren't giant PR omnibus articles that say everything about a subject, and nothing, is good.

The other book I've read consistently on the bus over the last couple of weeks is Lost Woods, a compilation of previously unpublished work by naturalist Rachel Carson. My mother had a copy of Carson's The Sense of Wonder and The Sea Around Us (probably a first edition) when I was little, and I always loved Carson's style and sense of rhythm. Her essays, even ones she wrote fo the US Fish & Wildlife Service, read like poetry, not prose. Simply amazing.

Ok, enough. We'll see what Friday brings; that's usually my day to plot the weekend's reading and writing activity. However, my partner & I are planning her daughter's baby shower this weekend, so I have a feeling my creative efforts will center on videotaping the event and finishing the preparations! :)