Writing Nonfiction Is More Like Sculpture, A

I Recall An August Afternoon In Chicago In 1973 When I Took My Daughter, Then Seven, To See What Georgia O’keeffe Had Done With Where She Had Been. One Of The Vast O’keeffe ‘sky Above Clouds’ Canvases Floated Over The Back Stairs In The Chicago Art Institute That Day, Dominating What Seemed To Be Several Stories Of Empty Light, And My Daughter Looked At It Once, Ran To The Landing, And Kept On Looking. "who Drew It," She Whispered After A While. I Told Her. "i Need To Talk To Her," She Said Finally.

If We Do Not Respect Ourselves, We Are On The One Hand Forced To Despise Those Who Have So Few Resources As To Consort With Us, So Little Perception As To Remain Blind To Our Fatal Weaknesses. On The Other, We Are Peculiarly In Thrall To Everyone We See, Curiously Determined To Live Out — Since Our Self-image Is Untenable — Their False Notions Of Us… We Play Roles Doomed To Failure Before They Are Begun, Each Defeat Generating Fresh Despair At The Urgency Of Divining And Meeting The Next Demand Made Upon Us.

Going Back To California Is Not Like Going Back To Vermont, Or Chicago; Vermont And Chicago Are Relative Constants, Against Which One Measures One's Own Change. All That Is Constant About The California Of My Childhood Is The Rate At Which It Disappears.

Yes, But Another Writer I Read In High School Who Just Knocked Me Out Was Theodore Dreiser. I Read An American Tragedy All In One Weekend And Couldn't Put It Down - I Locked Myself In My Room. Now That Was Antithetical To Every Other Book I Was Reading At The Time Because Dreiser Really Had No Style, But It Was Powerful.

Read, Learn, Work It Up, Go To The Literature. Information Is Control.