It Took Courage To Let Things Fall

The Mind Self-edits. The Mind Airbrushes. It's A Different Thing To Be Inside A Body Than Outside. From Outside, You Can Look, Inspect, Compare. From Inside There Is No Comparison.

I Was Thinking How Amazing It Was That The World Contained So Many Lives. Out In These Streets People Were Embroiled In A Thousand Different Matters, Money Problems, Love Problems, School Problems. People Were Falling In Love, Getting Married, Going To Drug Rehab, Learning How To Ice-skate, Getting Bifocals, Studying For Exams, Trying On Clothes, Getting Their Hair-cut And Getting Born. And In Some Houses People Were Getting Old And Sick And Were Dying, Leaving Others To Grieve. It Was Happening All The Time, Unnoticed, And It Was The Thing That Really Mattered.

Bubble Gum Angels Swooped From Top Margins Or Scraped Their Wings Between Teeming Paragraphs, Maidens With Golden Hair Dripped Sea Blue Tears Into The Books Spine, Grape-colored Whales Spouted Blood Around A Newspaper Item (pasted In) Listing Arrivals To The Endangered Spieces List. Six Hatchlings Cried From Shattered Shells Near An Entry Made On Easter. Cecilia Had Filled The Pages With A Profusion Of Colors And Curlicues, Candyland Ladders And Striped Shamrocks.

I Was Unemployable When I Got Out Of College.

The Daily Act Of Writing Remains As Demanding And Maddening As It Was Before, And The Pleasure You Get From Writing - Rare But Profound - Remains At The True Heart Of The Enterprise. On Their Best Days, Writers All Over The World Are Winning Pulitzers, All Alone In Their Studios, With No One Watching.