Thinking of Writing

You can get very good at finding excellent places to write but never actually sit down and do it. Trust me. The writing perches I've found are nearly perfect. Multiple comfortable quiet spots for work and concentration. Too perfect.  When time comes to write, time never comes. The more time available to write, the more time  goes toward unprecedented acts of neighborhood involvement, previously unheard of demonstrations of familial outreach, long postponed property stewardship tasks involving the hiring of multiple handymen, and reading.  But mostly reading, reading, reading.

Writing is like breaking a lock with a hammer - banging away at some draft believing there may be a good story within the words but getting annoyed with the trouble and effort.  So many other things need doing.  And there sits a stack of books by writers who've already opened the locks for you.   

The latest: Jonathan Franzen's novel, Freedom. It was most enjoyable and not as time consuming as it might have been if it were any less wonderful.  

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[Green Dragon]

Easy reading is damn hard writing - Nathaniel Hawthorne