#1 In the margins
I could see myself thirty years on, wearing the same shabby tweed coats with patches on the elbows, potbelly rolling over my Gap khakis from too much beer. I’d have a cigarette cough from too many packs of Pall Malls, thicker glasses, more dandruff, and in my desk drawer, six or seven unfinished manuscripts which I would take out and tinker with from time to time, usually when drunk. If asked about what I did in my spare time, I’d tell people I was writing a book — what else does any self-respecting creative-writing teacher do with his or her spare time? And of course I’d lie to myself, telling myself there was still time, it wasn’t too late, there were novelists who didn’t get started until they were fifty, hell even sixty. Probably plenty of them.
-Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft
Do you sometimes push yourself with such startling images? Does it help? What are your worst fears?
Perhaps one may argue that a work should never come from a place of fear. It isn’t fear that I’m asking you to tap into. On the contrary, it is love. If you love your wants and needs enough, you will know to give into them. You will know to treat yourself with a finished piece of work. You will know to gift yourself the relief of having seen something to its end. You will not leave things half done. Or better yet, you will not turn deaf to your own calling.
Time and again I return to what Mary Oliver wrote in one of her essays. “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and give to it neither power nor time.”
Always remember this — You do not want to wake up years later and wonder where and when you chose to numb your urges. Fight against the voice that comforts you, that whispers (false) reassurances. Pursuing art or any creative form of expression is like braving a stormy night. Except that stormy night is every night.
I now leave in a hurry but I’ll leave you with some of these crumpled notes I saved for myself. Here, take them
And the days are not full enough
And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
Not shaking the grass
- Ezra PoundDust
Someone spoke to me last night,
told me the truth. Just a few words,
but I recognized it.
I knew I should make myself get up,
write it down, but it was late,
and I was exhausted from working
all day in the garden, moving rocks.
Now, I remember only the flavor —
not like food, sweet or sharp.
More like a fine powder, like dust.
And I wasn’t elated or frightened,
but simply rapt, aware.
That’s how it is sometimes —
God comes to your window,
all bright light and black wings,
and you’re just too tired to open it.
-Dorianne LauxYou have no right to assumer that you’ll be able to write because you could write yesterday.
-Hilary Mantel
I do keep going back to the desk. And every time — every single time — the fog rolls in, my mind goes blank and the struggle begins.
-Vivian Gornick
PS: I’ve borrowed the title to this letter, “In the margins”, from Elena Ferrante’s book on writing. These are short letters, resembling notes scribbled on page margins. I plan on putting together quick observations on things I read or watch in these quick notes and hope to send them once every week.
🌻