Author: Angela Rydell

Sometimes I get to the end of a book and set it aside before reading the final pages.

It’s not that I don’t want to know what happens—quite the opposite.

I set it down because I don’t want the book to be over. Don’t want to say goodbye to the characters, the world. It’s almost as if finishing the book means I’ll lose a relationship I don’t ever want to end.

So I savor the last few pages. And may even plan how to keep the story going after I’m done. Or at least revisit something I loved about the book in some way.

I can read other books by the same author (a bit like meeting the siblings of a partner), so might make a list of those. I can read books the author was influenced by, and might do a little research.

I can reread the book a few years later (or sooner!) so might set it aside to return to. I may do a deeper dive right away, take some notes. Reread favorite passages. Ponder the meaning and craft. As a creative writing instructor I may even add some material to a handout so I can teach a little about what I loved.

If the book is part of a series, all the better—I have more to look forward to. Unless (and this happens all too often!) the next book just isn’t quite the same. But maybe the book after it will scratch that itch.

I know that some writers even go so far as to write their own fan fiction in the worlds of the books they loved to read—a satisfying way to creatively re-enter those worlds for a while.

But as bittersweet as it is, at some point I will finish the book and close its covers and feel a little bereft. Though I take solace in the fact that I’m not really “breaking up” with the book. I can pick up another and fall in love all over again—guilt free.

The Inlet is growing—because of you, along with you. We’re growing together.

I know it’s deep winter, and about one degree outside as I write this. When I look at the trees, they’re bare and still. The grass is flattened, snow-dusted. But underneath it all, molecule by molecule, the wildness of new wisdom quietly rocks its own cradle.

I’ve chosen a theme for the year. It’s a year of growth. Your growth. My growth. The miraculous growth of trees as they stand still. Of flowers unfurling in spring. Of eggs hatching and foxes slinking stealthily in tall grasses. Growth that leads to change. Challenge. Perhaps even a new way of seeing oneself. Even the world we’re in. Despite the world we’re in.

After my brother’s sudden death this past September, leaves flared vermillion and began to fall. All the plants in my garden slowly dwindled and hunkered down for the freeze of winter.

At times I too wanted to drop all color, dwindle, and stop doing much of anything. But everything around me kept happening. The election and its shockwaves. The storms in North Carolina. The fires now raging in Los Angeles.

Some days it feels as if my brother’s death heralded this cascade of apocalypses. Others days, I feel facing his death has helped me endure them. And last night, I lay awake to a pair of owls hooting, feeling as if he was there with me, listening, nudging me toward life, renewal.

In you, in this deep midwinter, renewal may be growing, too. An idea may be growing. Insights about your work. Images. Courageous language. Your dreams may be informing your creative life under the surface—or right before your eyes.

The last conversation I had with my brother, who passionately loved music, we talked about how important listening was to him. But not just listening to music. Listening to everything from beloved music to podcasts to those creative stirrings within.

So I leave you with that sentiment, too: listen. Listen to what’s going on outside yourself. Listen inward. And let what you hear—or simply listening itself—help you grow.

If you’d like some help tuning in, join the Inlet this winter. We can be part of each other’s growth. We can support each other. Be part of something greater than ourselves—and connect more fully to the greatness that is already within us—together.

This New Year, I’m trying something new to reinvigorate my writing practice: I’m starting 2025 with a plan for reading rather than a list of writing goals.

I was talking with my mother-in-law, author Trisha Day, about how most successful authors are avid readers who have discovered the only thing that compares with the pleasure found in reading is the pleasure they find expressing themselves in writing.

So I figured, why not combine the two? As I work out my reading plan, I’m already discovering ways it’s informing my as-of-yet unwritten writing plan. Planning how to go about choosing books to read this year feels a bit like an invocation for calling not just one but multiple muses.

And the plan I’m developing is more than just a list of books I want to read. Trisha and I have been discussing her comprehensive approach to reading. It’s an approach that honors what she loves about the written word as well as how reading enriches her life overall—which dovetails nicely with her own interests and goals as a writer.

Want to create a reading plan of your own? One that best fits your creative vision and celebrates the joy you take in the written word? Trisha’s sharing her reading plan with us and you’re welcome to borrow elements you love, too.

Here is Trisha Day on how she plans to be “well read” in 2025:

Every January instead of making New Year’s Resolutions only to end up breaking them anyway, I start the year by putting together a yearly reading plan. It appeals to the list-maker in me and helps me deal with the fact that there’s never enough time for all the books I’d love to read. A reading plan helps me narrow things down a little.

It also helps me keep track of what I’ve read over the years in case I want to go back and check a title or author I want to read again. And it’s fun deciding what to include each year – a bit like it used to be putting together a Christmas wish list for Santa Claus. Only now I don’t have to worry about not getting what I asked for.

The list always includes a few classics (Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald) as well as books I’ve read before (Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen). But I also add books that have been published within the last few years (James, Percival Everett) and others that have won previous Pulitzer, Booker or other awards (The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro.)

My plan covers a wide range of genres from Science Fiction/ Fantasy (Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury); historical fiction (The Little Red Chairs, Edna O’Brien); biography (King: A Life, Jonathan Eig) and memoir (Piano Lessons, Noah Adams) to poetry (Delights and Shadows, Ted Kooser ); non fiction (On Vanishing, Lynn Casteel Harper); history (How the Word is Passed, Clint Smith); short stories (Normal Rules Don’t Apply, Kate Atkinson); mysteries (Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers); nature writing (Landmarks, Robert MacFarlane) and spirituality (My Bright Abyss, Christian Wiman.)

I like to include a few books that were published the year I was born (Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh); books that are set in other countries (The End of Drum Time, Hanna Pylvainen) and books that take place in different regions of the U.S. (The Heart is Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers).

I always include one or two titles that have been recommended by friends or found on reading websites or blogs. Finally, I add a few books from the previous year that I never did get around to reading after all. That’s because I have two rules I stick to all throughout my reading year: 1) It’s okay not to read everything on the list. And 2) it’s also okay to keep adding to it. Because when it comes to reading, enough is never enough and no matter how many books I read I’ll always want more.

As holiday intensity peaks, I crave getting away from “getting and spending.”

A favorite refuge of mine is curling up with a good book—and I know I’m not alone. Perhaps you too fight to make time to simply sit and read amidst the holiday hustle and bustle.

I recently talked with my mother-in-law Trisha Day about her reading habits this time of year. She’s perhaps the most well-read person I know, and I always learn so much from her approach to reading.

So I asked her to share a little with me—and us—about both what she’s reading, and how she goes about reading in the midst of the holiday busyness:

Here’s Trisha Day on her reading list, and finding just five or ten minutes for slow reading:

I am not a one-book-at-a-time reader probably because once I start a book, I keep finding others I want to read as well. So, it’s not unusual for me to have four or five books going at the same time. Life, after all, takes me off in all kinds of different directions and I have become adept at skipping along from one thing to the other with as much energy as I can muster.

It means trying to be fully present to whatever it is I’m doing at the moment instead of pretending there is such a thing as multi-tasking. (There’s not. “Multi-tasking” just means switching back and forth between different things you’re trying to do without giving your full attention to any of them.)

Reading several books “at the same time” simply means giving my full attention to whichever one I’ve picked up at the moment. And that’s easier to do when I slow down because as Georgia O’Keefe once said, “it’s impossible to pay attention in a hurry.”

Slowing down to pay attention to what I’m reading is a little like what happens on a walk when I take the time to stop and look around at what’s worth noticing instead of hurrying right past it.

Five or ten minutes of slow reading can be much more satisfying than half an hour spent rushing through the pages of a book I feel I need to read for a book club discussion.

This month my slow reading is taking me back and forth through the following books:

My Antonia by Willa Cather – set in the late 19th century as homesteaders were struggling with the hardships of prairie life just like my own immigrant ancestors did, this is a book I’ve read many years ago and am enjoying all over again.

Gone Fishin’ by Walter Mosely – about as far removed from Willa Cather as is possible, this prequel to Mosely’s detective series introduces us to the gritty, often rather raunchy but always likable Easy Rawlins.

Taking London: Winston Churchill and the Fight to Save Civilization by Martin Dugard – based on the lives of some of the major figures involved in protecting London from the threat imposed by Nazi Germany, this makes me wish I would have paid more attention to my history classes.

Winter Morning Walks by Ted Kooser former Poet Laureate and one of my favorite poets – this slim volume is a collection of short poems he wrote each day beginning in late November and copied onto postcards to send to his friend and fellow poet Jim Harrison. I’ve been reading one of them each morning.

That’s what I’m reading as of now. But given how much I enjoy finding new books to read, I suppose I’ll be adding to that list before the month is over.

You too deserve to give yourself space and time—even just five minutes—for slow reading. I’d love to hear what you’ve been reading lately, whether you have five minutes or five hours.

The other day I realized my personal metaphors were getting a seasonal overhaul.

I had put away my “sun and fun” Hawaiian shirt and replaced it with my “geese-flying-into-the-sunset” tee. And while journaling, I likened my shifting thoughts to turning leaves rather then blooming flowers.

Do you have metaphors you’d like to put back into circulation too?

Metaphors can keep our thinking fresh—yes, even familiar metaphors like geese migrating south or turning leaves—especially when they invite meaningful reflection.

Metaphors can keep our writing lively on the level of the sentence, and on the level of structure too—from plot to the arc of epiphany.

They can even help us reflect on the quality and efficacy of our writing practice. Liken our habits to those of dancers. Borrow from the wisdom of grandma’s improvisational cooking.

Like geese flying south, the wisdom of metaphor can guide us as we orient to where we’ve been and where we’re going, draft after draft, and help us write our way to done.