Get In, Get Out. Don't Linger. Go

If We're Lucky, Writer And Reader Alike, We'll Finish The Last Line Or Two Of A Short Story And Then Just Sit For A Minute, Quietly. Ideally, We'll Ponder What We've Just Written Or Read; Maybe Our Hearts Or Intellects Will Have Been Moved Off The Peg Just A Little From Where They Were Before. Our Body Temperature Will Have Gone Up, Or Down, By A Degree. Then, Breathing Evenly And Steadily Once More, We'll Collect Ourselves, Writers And Readers Alike, Get Up, "created Of Warm Blood And Nerves" As A Chekhov Character Puts It, And Go On To The Next Thing: Life. Always Life.

And Did You Get What You Wanted From This Life Even So? I Did.

Isak Dinesen Said That She Wrote A Little Every Day, Without Hope And Without Despair. I Like That.

It's Akin To Style, What I'm Talking About, But It Isn't Style Alone. It Is The Writer's Particular And Unmistakable Signature On Everything He Writes. It Is His World And No Other. This Is One Of The Things That Distinguishes One Writer From Another. Not Talent. There's Plenty Of That Around. But A Writer Who Has Some Special Way Of Looking At Things And Who Gives Artistic Expression To That Way Of Looking: That Writer May Be Around For A Time.

A Little Autobiography And A Lot Of Imagination Are Best.