That's Not A Thing Any Of Us

Contentment Is Mostly A Matter Of Talking Yourself Into Believing That God Will Not Strike You Too Hard For Leaning In The Direction Of Your Hungers.

Verbs. All Of Them Tiring.

Writing Doesn't Come Real Easy To Me. I Couldn't Write A Novel In A Year. It Wouldn't Be Readable. I Don't Let An Editor Even Look At It Until The Second Year, Because It Would Just Scare Them. I Just Have To Trust That All These Scraps And Dead-ends Will Find A Way.

So Of Course Time Is Necessary. But Nevertheless Damn Painful, For It Transforms All The Pieces Of Your Life - Joy And Sorrow, Youth And Age, Love And Hate, Terror And Bliss - From Fire Into Smoke Rising Up The Air And Dissipating On A Breeze.

While Writing Cold Mountain, I Held Maps Of Two Geographies, Two Worlds, In My Mind As I Wrote. One Was An Early Map Of North Carolina. Overlaying It, Though, Was An Imagined Map Of The Landscape Jack Travels In The Southern Appalachian Folktales. He's Much The Same Jack Who Climbs The Beanstalk, Vulnerable And Clever And Opportunistic.