History, Writing, Infect After A Time A

Novels Arise Out Of The Shortcomings Of History.

He Was Beautiful, That Was Always Affirmed, But His Beauty Was Hard To Fix Or To See, For He Was Always Glimmering, Flickering, Melting, Mixing, He Was The Shape Of A Shapeless Flame, He Was The Eddying Thread Of Needle-shapes In The Shapeless Mass Of The Waterfall. He Was The Invisible Wind That Hurried The Clouds In Billows And Ribbons. You Could See A Bare Tree On The Skyline Bent By The Wind, Holding Up Twisted Branches And Bent Twigs, And Suddenly Its Formless Form Would Resolve Itself Into That Of The Trickster.

The More Research You Do, The More At Ease You Are In The World You're Writing About. It Doesn't Encumber You, It Makes You Free.

As A Little Girl, I Didn't Like Stories About Little Girls. I Liked Stories About Dragons And Beasts And Princes And Princesses And Fear And Terror And The Four Musketeers And Almost Anything Other Than Nice Little Girls Making Moral Decisions About Whether To Tell The Teacher About What The Other Little Girl Did Or Did Not Do.

I Cannot Bear Not To Know The End Of A Tale. I Will Read The Most Trivial Things – Once Commenced – Only Out Of A Feverish Greed To Be Able To Swallow The Ending – Sweet Or Sour – And To Be Done With What I Need Never Have Embarked On. Are You In My Case? Or Are You A More Discriminating Reader? Do You Lay Aside The Unprofitable?