The Past Is What Makes Now Like

In A Very Real Way, One Writes A Story To Find Out What Happens In It. Before It Is Written It Sits In The Mind Like A Piece Of Overheard Gossip Or A Bit Of Intriguing Tattle. The Story Process Is Like Taking Up Such A Piece Of Gossip, Hunting Down The People Actually Involved, Questioning Them, Finding Out What Really Occurred, And Visiting Pertinent Locations. As With Gossip, You Can't Be Too Surprised If Important Things Turn Up That Were Left Out Of The First-heard Version Entirely; Or If Points Initially Made Much Of Turn Out To Have Been Distorted, Or Simply Not To Have Happened At All.

I Think Of Myself As A Very Lazy Writer, Though Other People See It Differently.

It Is A Magic Book. Words Mean Things. When You Put Them Together They Speak. Yes, Sometimes They Flatten Out And Nothing They Say Is Real, And That Is One Kind Of Magic. But Sometimes A Vision Will Rip Up From Them And Shriek And Clank Wings Clear As The Sweat Smudge On The Paper Under Your Thumb. And That Is Another Kind.

Actions Are Interesting To Watch. I Learn About The Actors. Their Movements Are Emblems Of The Tensions In This Internal Landscape, Which Their Actions Resolve. About-to-act Is An Interesting State To Experience, Because I Am Conscious Of Just Those Tensions. Acting Itself Feels Fairly Dull; It Not Only Resolves, It Obliterates Those Tensions From My Consciousness. Acting Is Only Interesting As It Leads To New Tensions That, Irrelevantly, Cause Me To Act Again.

The Problem Isn't To Learn To Love Humanity, But To Learn To Love Those Members Of It Who Happen To Be At Hand.