There’s something about writing the first things that come out of your head every morning with the first cup of coffee near at hand. My mind is clearest then, if I’ve had a decent sleep. No telling how long it will stay that way, unless I add an Adderall into the equation. Then I can usually count on a good five hours of mental clarity.
That doesn’t mean whatever I write will have any future value. What it’s mostly good for is clearing the dreamy sleep cobwebs, performing a giddy-up for my brain, and to remind me, that like brushing my teeth, like breakfast, writing is part of the rhythm of my day.
I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the more I crave simplicity. Peace. Clarity. Love, giving and receiving. Like two exes, I’ve chosen to divorce two things that weren’t working for me, worry and shame. Guilt I still have, but I deal with it right now, not stuff it down for years while I whistle past the graveyard. That graveyard don’t ever disappear. It turns up around every corner these days, so might as well just put on the big girl panties and deal.
I’m refreshed, inspired and schooled by writers new and old, every day. Yesterday I finished a new read of Willa Cather’s novelette, A Lost Lady. It is jaw-dropping in gorgeousness, its elegant spareness, its absolute essentialness. It has lines like this: “His clumsy dignity covered a deep nature, and a conscience that had never been juggled with.” And this one: “Nothing much ever happened to him but weather.” And this: “He had never seen her before when her mocking eyes and lively manner were not between her and all the world.”
Today, on the advice of my amazing developmental editor and friend Shari, I am reading (for the first time) Tobias Wolfe’s Bullet in the Brain, which she touts as her favorite short story of all time. High praise. I’ll let you know what I think next time.
