Language Plain Enough to Comprehend

Over the years I have encountered the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln in histories and various collections of his wit and wisdom.  I knew already I had a collection of quotations of his on my bookshelf, but I still chose to buy this slim volume at a neighbor's garage sale.

Edited by Carol Kelly-Gangi 2007 Fall River Press

Here is a quotation from page three that my desire to communicate well can take to heart:

I can say this, that among my earliest recollections I remember how, when a mere child, I used to get irritated when anybody talked to me in a way I could not understand...I can remember going to my little bedroom, after hearing the neighbors talk of an evening with my father, and spending no small part of the night walking up and down, and trying to make out what was the exact meaning of some of their, to me, dark sayings.  I could not sleep, though I often tried to, when I got on such a hunt after an idea, until I had caught it; and when I thought I had got it, I was not satisfied until I had repeated it over and over, until I had put it in language plain enough, as I thought, for any boy I knew to comprehend.

 A remark by  President Abraham Lincoln made to Reverend J.P. Gulliver, from Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln by F.B. Carpenter

Another way this childhood remembrance of Lincoln's desire to understand adult communication encouraged me is that it validated the theme and intent of a short story I wrote a few years back and which I had recently pulled from the drawer to refine up a bit.

I need to clean out those heavy file folders in my drawers and  I hope to do it without being too rough on some of those early manuscripts.  A little validation and encouragement might give me just the right touch.  I miss having a fireplace though...somehow burning old journals and rough drafts feels different than shredding them.  Perhaps it is just that crackle and warmth of the fire versus the mechanical sound of the sheering teeth of the shredder slicing the words into confetti that still needs to be recycled. Ah, but there is is something to the instant finality of flame licking through those pages one wrote and saved and then released as somehow no longer needed...especially those not written in language plain enough to be truly comprehended.

Creativity...Chalk it UP!

Chalk it up to sheer creative energy....

two senior Advertising and Graphic Design students decided class projects were overwhelming rather than inspiring and so they switched from computer to chalk boards .

  Here is one that caught  my eye,  and speaking of motivation I do like the message.

by Dangerdust

 You can read about the two chalk artists  known as Dangerdust HERE.

Been thinking..

and reading and working and writing, how about you?

Here's a quote I read today:

Marshall McLuhan said, “A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding.” 

~~~~

J.R.R.. Tolkien on Peril in the World...

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there

 are many dark places; but still there is much 

that is fair, and though in all lands love is now 

mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the 

greater."

J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings

Read...Admire what is Good and Write

I received a hand written letter from a young friend last week who tells me she  has been "starting books but keeps on getting writer's block."  I was amazed and excited that this young  woman is aspiring in the realm of writing but dismayed that she had let the concept  of "writer's block" enter into her self motivated exploration of creative fiction.  

Isn't it amazing enough that we take these letters and rearrange them into thoughts and feelings that represent our inner and outer worlds?  And when words don't flow onto the blank page hopefully we are stacking up experience in other realms...you know...out there alive and well in life day by day!

It's true that troubles and stress and illness can require the energy and impulse needed to be creative but  rather than concede to the idea of being or having a "writer's block" I want to encourage my young friend that it is better to focus on foundational building blocks.  Hands on living and solid reading  have been the master teachers of many writers.   If we  read texts that have survived the fires of time and fashion, we can study with the best of the best.

The spine of an old book that caught my eye on a  used book shelf

                            

Read old books...read great books...read the Good Book.

In William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White's classic Elements of Style   there is an encouragement to:

Write in a way that comes easily and naturally to you, using words and phrases that come readily to hand. But do not assume that because you have acted naturally your product is without flaw.

The use of language begins with imitation. The infant imitates the sounds made by its parents; the child imitates first the spoken language, then the stuff of books. The imitative life continues long after the writer is secure in the language, for it is almost impossible to avoid imitating what one admires. Never imitate consciously, but do not worry about being an imitator; take pains instead to admire what is good. Then when you write in a way that comes naturally, you will echo the halloos that bear repeating. ( p. 70 3rd Ed 1979 Macmillan Pub.) 

Abraham Lincoln was known to advise : 

A capacity  and taste for reading gives access to whatever has been discovered by others.  It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems.  And not only so; it gives a relish and facility for sucessfully pursuing the unsolved ones. ( p. 30   Abraham Lincoln Wit and Wisdom  1965 The Peter Pauper Press)

Annie Dillard asks: 

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power? ( p. 73 The Writing Life  Harper & Row 1st Ed.)

And having read much  there is  just writing...a reader asked Annie Dillard, "Who will teach me to write?" Her answer:  "The page, the page, that eternal blankness... "( p. 58 The Writing Life  Harper & Row 1st Ed.)

I must thank my young friend for sharing with me that she has begun writing; it is an exciting adventure and one that I enjoy allowing myself.

All the best!

Jeannette

p.s. this post is with much love for A.M.M.

You'd generally get to somewhere Else if you ran very fast for a long time...

 as it was told to Alice in the Wonderland she encountered:

'Now! Now!' cried the Queen. 'Faster! Faster!' And they went so fast that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground, breathless and giddy.

The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, 'You may rest a little now.'

Alice looked round her in great surprise. 'Why, I do believe we've been under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'

'Of course it is,' said the Queen, 'what would you have it?'

'Well, in our country,' said Alice, still panting a little, 'you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you ran very fast for a long time, as we've been doing.'

'A slow sort of country!' said the Queen. 'Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.

If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!' 

Where Do You Put Punctuation, Inside or Outside Quotation Marks?

I try to know and use the rules of language as consistently as the firing of my neural synapse patterns will allow during the prime wakeful hours of any day, but I am easily led astray.

In my years of professional listening I knew that unless I internally corrected some of what I heard, I might absorb it unconsciously.

“But me and her had been planning to get married,” said a man, explaining that his intended had left town with a man she had met at a pizza parlor. (This is a fictitious example. All actual men I have known either had different problems or their losses involved no pizza parlor Romeos.)

Grammar is clearly not an appropriate focus for such an hour of difficulty, but I try to set apart no more than the mental wattage requirements of a small night-light to translate in my own mind the “hims” and “hers” into the proper personal pronouns. If I don’t, what guarantee do I have that I won’t soon forget their proper use myself?

I find I have the same problem with reading unedited material. How many creatively punctuated essays or short stories can I read without becoming uncertain as to the standard use of those helpful little marks?

Reading otherwise engaging self-published material on the Internet does expose us to many problems of English grammar and usage. I once encountered an announcement that looked something like this:

"Don’t Worry, Be Happy",  is the title of my new …

That lost and lonely comma lit a flame and inspired a question in me.

THE QUESTION: In American usage, where does punctuation go, inside quotation marks or outside of them?

THE ANSWER: I knew the answer would not be completely straightforward, didn’t you? The answer is, it depends.

INSIDE: Generally speaking, periods and commas go inside the quotation marks.

“I worry I will never be happy,” the jilted man said.

I have a great recipe I’ll share with you called “Mash-Mush.”

OUTSIDE: Semicolons and colons generally go outside quotation marks.

Her favorite writing manual is “The Elements of Style”; she refers to it often.

There are two reasons she hated being called “Sweet Pea”: it is diminutive and it is cloying.

INSIDE or OUTSIDE: The question mark is of course willing to bring up extra questions. In most cases, a question mark should be inside the quotation marks.

“What do you worry about?” he asked.

However, if the question mark is not part of the actual quotation then it must go outside the quotation marks.

Have you read “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”?

No, but I did read “What Me Worry?”

This general rule also holds for exclamation points. If the exclamation mark is part of the quote, include it within the quotation marks. As it has been suggested that any author probably needs to use no more than one or two exclamation marks per lifetime, if the exclamation point is not part of a direct quote you could always solve your doubt or indecision by omitting the exclamation point altogether and then you can follow the more straightforward rule for periods and drop that little baby right inside the quotations marks.

In addition to Strunk and White's classic The Elements of Style, one easy reference for questions such as this is Patricia T. O'Conner's book, Woe Is I  The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English. I hope my review will help me keep these particulars straight. And if perchance it has helped you that will help me too, because chances are that I have been reading something you have written and as I said earlier, I am easily led astray.

~If You Want to Write~ but Painters, Musicians & Artist in General -Take Note Too

I am reading a wonderful book called If You Want to Write A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit written and first published in 1938 by author and teacher Brenda Ueland (1891-1985).

One of her primary premises is that to be human is to be talented because everybody who is human has something to express, and everybody is original and has something important to say if he tells the truth. "But it must be from his true self and not from the self he thinks he should be." (p. 4)

She sees creative power and imagination as very tender and sensitive and usually "drummed out of people" very early in life, and so she sets out to share and encourage the possibility of being blessed by using one's creative powers. In a foot note she writes:

"Whenever I say "writing" in this book I also mean anything that you love
and want to do or to make. It may be a six-act tragedy in blank verse, it
may be dressmaking or acrobatics, or inventing a new system of double entry
book-keeping. But you must be sure that your imagination and love
are behind it, that you are not working just from grim resolution, i.e., to make
money or impress people." (p.14)

She understands any creative work where the feelings imagination and intelligence are employed to have intrinsic value. Writing teaches the writer, stretches a person. "It has done you good." (p. 15), she wrote in her succinct way.
In addition to the much she learned over the years from her students, friends and writer contemporaries, she draws greatly upon the lives and work of Chekhov, William Blake, Vincent Van Gogh and Mozart.
Even though I'm just a few chapters into this book, I've enjoyed aspects of it so much it would feel selfish not to share of its existence and I'd like to hear from others who are already familiar with Ms. Ueland's work. I had never heard of her and just stumbled upon a used copy of the 1987 second edition from Graywolf Press. I've since noticed on Amazon that it's been republished again. It seems deigned to be a classic. I'll leave you with one of her definitions of art:

"But the moment I read Van Gogh's letter I knew what art was, and the creative impulse. It is a feeling of love (1) and enthusiasm for something, and
in a direct, simple, passionate and true way, you try to show this beauty
in things to others, by drawing it.
1Or it can be a feeling of hate and abhorrence too. through the work of the men who have worked from love
seems to be greater than those who have worked from
hate.

Well, I'm heading back to a little music, some exercise, my reading and writing and preparing for Christmas.

Happy Holidays to All

~~~~~

Ageless as the Star and the Lily

In Praise of the Friendship of Books
Quotations from the writings of Oswald Chambers
(c) 2000 JPR

“Books…friends that are ever true and ever your own.” I certainly feel this way about some books and as for Oswald Chambers, the man who penned these words, I count him, through his writing, as such a friend. His days began in the year 1874 and ended in the year 1917, years before my days began. He had not himself rushed to publish, but after his death those who had known and loved him sought to preserve and share what he’d written, gathering his lectures, lesson notes, journal meditations and letters. Numerous titles were published posthumously and some remain in print.

I had made my first acquaintance with Oswald Chambers, as many people do, through the renowned collection of short readings, My Utmost for His Highest. My husband presented the slim volume to me. I had no idea what a challenge I was being given, nor what a friend I was about to meet. Morning after morning I let this man’s words encounter me, but it was not until seven years later that I discovered other writing of Oswald Chambers on the bookshelf of one of my generous friends.

Even though our homes were distant and our visits rare, my friend insisted that I borrow his entire collection of Oswald Chambers, including the 1959 out of print Oswald Chambers, His Life and Work. Knowing that I might never have my own copy of this treasure, or be able to borrow or read this book again, as I read (1996) I created a notebook of favorite passages from this work . That notebook has been tucked away on a shelf for the past four years. Tonight, I came across it and found that it is filled with quotes of a translucent nature that beg to have the light of additional sharing shine though them.

In the pages of Oswald’s biography, when I say I encountered a friend, I mean, to borrow his words, I encountered “a living mind competently expressed.” Oswald was willing to think vulnerably and strenuously. “To think is an effort; to think rightly is a great effort, and to think as a Christian ought to think is the greatest effort of a human soul,” he wrote in a paper he titled “Holy Patience.”

Stick to the Point

Oswald wrote and lived obedient to his own maxim to “stick to the point.” Listen to the pure poetry of his internal dialogue, the economy of his self-counsel, which is found scattered throughout his journal entries. “Be definite…Never lower the ideal…I refuse to worry.”

As I glimpsed how truly thinking this way could shape and energize otherwise lost time and energy of my days, I lamented. Oh the time that I have cast away in the billowing sails of the ship named “waste and worry.” My friend was ready with another word for me, “Arise and do the next thing…never let the sense of failure corrupt your new action.”

And at what pace does one need to stride to keep in step with such a friend? “Unhasting, unresting…” How do two small words capture such dynamic balance?

“Unhasting,” it is a challenging word; laments about the fast pace of life these days are common. Oswald wrote of how he found it a blessed thing in life that “a man carries his kingdom on the inside, and that makes the outside lovely.” The cry of his heart was for the courage to rely on God’s provisions; redemption in Christ Jesus and wisdom of the Holy Spirit to avoid the world’s polarities of rationalism and common sense on the one hand or worry and fear on the other.

Oswald Chambers was known for urging others to recognize any experience that ought to be theirs but was not, and to promptly confess this before God and to put one’s self in the right attitude to make it one’s own. He thought of counseling and teaching as opportunity to experience holiness in human relationships. He prized “spontaneous moral originality.” He urged that organization must be seen “to be the scaffolding,” and that it not be confused with the body that erects it.

This focus on the essence and the essential is delightfully present in so many passages that may have been just the scribbles of some moment he claimed in quietude.

“The thing that comes to me just now is that children, love,straightforwardness, simplicity, are all very old,so old that there is no time about them. They are ageless and they partake of the order of the star and the lily. The busy-nesses, the importance, the worrying, and the doing-goodness are all recent and passing.”

And so is my friend, Mr. Chambers, “very old, so old that there is no time about” him. He too partakes of the “order of the star and the lily” and the order of friendship that transcends time and place and is passed down and along to us in books.

Vincent Van Gogh's "Starry Night"

A Common Thread

I dislike having to categorize where one day's writing goes versus another. Organizing my journal feels like splitting hairs. There's just one of me, why did I sprout twenty-two labels on this blog and why do I have two blogs? As diverse as the thoughts, feelings and happenings are that prompt me to write, there's a part of me that resists categories and acknowledging divisions. I don't like politics of any kind. For years I managed to pretend politics were of no account, but there is no realm where they do not seem to penetrate. School yard, grocery, bookstore, doctor's office, church, where can one go? Yes, even my notebooks...but I long to just spin and weave with a common thread... I say...with my own embroidery in mind.

Don't get me wrong about wanting to ignore divisions, boundaries are good things. For your visual and mental convenience, I've even started a new paragraph here, hoping to protect all of us from blurry thinking. I see boundaries in nature....niches of functional richness, spatial and temporal and seasonal variations of an environment both allow and limit what grows, and who sings or crawls in any particular place.

Gretchen Johanna at Gladsome Lights leaned on George Bernard Shaw to solve her dilemma of categories : "Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life..." wrote Shaw and so G. J., acknowledging her debt, labeled her archive of posts "Crude Classifications." That helps me, remembering that many of our divisions are but "crude."

Here is an example of the ubiquitous nature of politics: I recently read an interview of a young author, editor, publisher who among other literary efforts, compiled and edited a book of birth stories. Here she is discussing feedback she's received.

Despite the fact that I didn't have a political agenda when I edited the book, I've noticed that people do have a political response to the book. I didn't have any criteria for the essays except that I wanted each essay I selected to reach the highest literary standards. I've found Christians who like the pro-natal aspect of the book but object to the fact that I've included a couple of essays by lesbians. Natural or home birth proponents have objected to the fact that I include hospital births in the book. And hospital birth proponents have argued that the book is biased towards natural birth. Whatever. About half the births in the book are hospital births and half are natural births so I don’t see how there could be a “bias” from either side. And I included essays by Christians, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, and who knows what. I honestly didn't care about that part of it. I just wanted to show that whatever TYPE of birth a person experiences, and no matter what spiritual persuasion a person has, the process of giving birth is life-affirming (even when a baby dies, as happens with one of the birth stories in the book) and that process changes men and women in profound and measurable ways.

I take her at her word, she either didn't have an agenda or was not fully conscious of it, but either way she has set out on an up hill battle. I see her desire; she's looking for a common thread and she, not a mother herself, chose to edit a book focused on something that we each and all do in fact have in common, being birthed. Other of her ventures reveal that she is neither unaware of nor ignores the divisive facts of life; it's more like she's willing to head into the eye of the storm in hopes of transcending them.

But of course it is very political to write about anything primal because the body politic wants control and claim over anything of the essence. That is a very old story. It does no good to proclaim our innocence, even if sitting home sewing crib quilts for peace, the critics, representing a full spectrum of goodwill to skulduggery are likely to come and point out how one's underlying assumptions are revealed by every choice, by what one has deigned to include or exclude. It is out of our assumptions that our more specific and concrete beliefs arise. And our beliefs do shape our methods and if we are worth our salt, so to speak, then our methods ought to line up and bring about our goals. Not to just circle about here, but those goals, in a life of purpose should be a practical reflection of the most primary assumptions, the foundation of our being. As tempting as it is to try and ignore politics, there is a war going on.

Divisions themselves are full spectrum, ranging from positive and purposeful to destructive and profligate. Within one side, one division, other divisions often occur; while occasionally ( and happily) reunions or offers thereof, also happen.

The wires of communication are hotly lit of late with news and opinions about the the recent offer that the Roman Catholic Pope has made to priests and parishioners fleeing the Episcopal Church. While some focus on the divisions that exist between these two ( three, four ?) bodies established over the last four hundred plus years, I read one analysis that explores some of the forces in the world that these entities struggle with. Richard Fernandez describes, in Lighting of the Beacons, some of the division and competition he sees this way: "From one side, there is the religion which pretends to be a political movement — socialism/communism. From the other flank there is the political movement which pretends to be a religion — Islam. Both religions have massive amounts of money, heavy weaponry and great cultural power."

It's an impressive essay, but I won't quote more of it here because it needs to be read in its entirety to be appreciated. Fernandez receives hundreds of comments within hours of posting on his web log. Many of the comments are essays unto themselves, some quite worthy of attention.

As I said, the thoughts, feelings and happenings that prompt me to write are diverse and as tempted as I am to resist nailing things down categorically, there is a difference between splitting hairs and seeing the real fissures in the world. It's a big conversation to enter and I never do so without trepidation but I trust that ultimately, whether in the wild or the civilizations of man, not one bird is forgotten and the hairs on our heads are counted. And I aim to lean into the word found in a letter to the Romans 12:18:

In as much as it is up to you, be at peace with all men

In other words, while standing among clear distinctions, it's also up to us to find a common thread.

~~~~~~~~

A Squeak for Voices Stolen

Stolen, it's a common word in our world. Riots break out in Iran with cries of a stolen election. Is it true? Can we know? Or has our trust been stolen in the sources of news that can reach us so quickly and sometimes mislead us. Should I trust the headline that says the election was "fair and healthy"?

Identities are stolen. Innocence can be stolen, but don't let them steal your hope.

Yes, your thunder can be 'stole.'

Or your pig...."he stole a pig and away he run..." What happened to that guy or the pig? "The pig was eat and Tom was beat and Tom went howling down the street." Perhaps Anonymous wasn't telling us an actual true story in "Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son" but it's a believable story.

Much thieving occurs under the mighty drug of self delusion. What a classic character Tolkien created in the whispers of Gollum, "It's mine, all mine, my precious."

As Woody Guthrie sang in his Pretty Boy Floyd :

As through this life you travel, You'll meet some funny men
Some rob you with a six gun And some with a fountain pen.

I've been learning about some pen and ink "t" crossing and some "i" dotting that may line right up to spell a "thief" in my personal realm. Once I have the facts, I might squeak about it a little bit, although I suspect that pig has already been "eat." Most probably I'll arm myself with the reminder I need...or maybe I'll remind myself of the armour I need.
"Do not store up for yourselves treasure on earth, where moths and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal." (Gospel according to Matthew 6:19)

All right, I'll work on that. I may need to steal away a little quiet from this noisy world to hear aright, but I'll work on that. And it's also good to remind myself to keep my own word true in all realms; a form of not stealing from myself. Truth is alchemy - a transformer of the common into the precious.

If someone does steal your voice, if your one vote is stolen, that's a hard thing; which is one of the reasons it's hard to read about the elections in Iran and wonder who did have a say? There are over 42 million young people in Iran. From Tehran ( APF):

"The main mobile telephone network in Iran was cut in the capital Tehran Saturday evening while popular Internet websites Facebook and YouTube also appeared to be blocked."

If the elective voice of the Iranian people was stolen, I hope they won't lose hope. Because I am able, I'm just squeaking a little here for those who may may not currently be able to squeak for themselves or may be in danger when they do. No matter where you stand, bad things can happen in the street, look at Tom and the pig. You can read the Tehran APF story here.

~~~~~~~

Misattributed Quotes...

I recently reminded a young friend of mine that when he pops quotes of others on his Facebook page he really ought to attribute them to their author rather than just borrow them. To acknowledge sources of information is basic, but sometimes good information comes through the grapevine misattributed.

Tonight a quote was shared with me:
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything that you have."
The person sharing the quote had been told it was from Thomas Jefferson.

Remembering my admonition to my young friend, I decided to check the attribution; it didn't sound like Thomas Jefferson's language to me and the quote was memorable enough that I might drop it somewhere some day, like on my blog, and wouldn't want to be wrong about its origin.

I quickly googled my way right into numerous discussions of the various people this quote had been misattributed to, not only Thomas Jefferson, but Davy Crockett, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

Who said these words? It was President Gerald Ford addressing a joint session of Congress on August 12, 1974. who said "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything that you have."
And he had said something very similar many years before as a representative to the U.S. Congress that is quoted in Stories and Gems of Wisdom by and About Politicians 1960 P.193 (source wikiquote).

When I read that Thomas Jefferson did communicate to Edward Carrington, Paris 27 May 1788,
"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground." That made linguistic sense to me.

And when I read that in 1965 Ronald Reagan did say " Government is like a baby, an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." Well, I could believe this too.

If you "google" these quotes I've shared they will come up in multiple valid sources.
The moral of the story is check quotes out when someone tells you "so and so said..."
But then the moral is also, wow, these guys were kind of on the same page, weren't they?

What page is our government on now?

Dragons at my Desk

Writing groups often jump start participants with prompts. Here’s a response I wrote a few years back to the prompt “dramatize what gets in the way of your writing.”
At least it fills the “dramatic” bill…hope you enjoy it.


~~~~
Why, when I sit at my desk to write, do other tasks suddenly flood my mind with their seeming importance? Why didn’t I notice the drooping plant before I sat down? It’s a rare quiet day, a great opportunity and yet I recognize the familiar approach of the dragon of distraction. Dragons can be fought…“Today is the only day I’ve got,” I cry, as I wave my pen in the air.

I push the telephone and its temptation to the farthest edge of my desk and straighten an empty page. It was Saint Augustine who said, “God has promised forgiveness to your repentance; but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.”
For uncounted moments I hear nothing but the steady scratching of my pen.

But small dragons come quietly and wait for their advantage. One perched rather near asks seemingly innocuous questions about the unpolished and incomplete state of my novel. It’s true; my manuscript is nothing more than a very rough draft. In the increasing heat of this critic’s breath, I grow weary but I know dragons can be fought. I remember a quip from Jane Smiley, her words glitter like a small shining shield. “Every first draft is perfect because all a first draft has to do is exist…”

With another of my dragons, if not vanquished, at least thwarted for the moment, I rustle my pile of unbound leaves, feeling content with the sheer number of pages, with their simple existence. They are safe from the flaming mouth that would have set them afire. My story exists, that’s enough for now. Polishing and completion will come. Why I’ve even got a little heat of my own. I feel content. The mountain of memory within me has heated and rumbled with creative tension and flowed forth like lava sending the dragons reeling back from the molten river’s flow.

But later, when I return to walk through the cooled written landscape, when the lava is but rock and ash, I find what seemed like the weight of tons inexplicably light and airy. It is but pumice dispersed over a bewildering terrain. I see how small and inconsequential the lumps that I am strong enough to pick up at any one time appear in the grand scheme. I myself can barely define a path through the landscape of my manuscript. I again grow aware of the heavy thumping that heralds the return of dragons.

“You’ve probably missed the point,” says a small sharp-tongued dragon.

“Or lost sight of the larger picture,” says another, circling about the cooling valley of my manuscript. “And what will it matter, anyway?”

I look down at my small hands and realize what sharp stuff it is that I am handling, how it can tear at my flesh, and suddenly it seems very inadvisable to go on, barefoot as I am. Perhaps the heat of my creativity has produced nothing but dust and rubble. I know, as Andrew Jackson advised, I shouldn’t take counsel from my fear.

But I retreat from the pen. I pick up a book, For Writer’s Only by Sophy Burnham, an annotated compilation of the angst, struggles and advice of many authors. I read John’s Hersey’s comment, “To be a writer is to throw away a good deal...” Hey, if that’s the criteria, I’m well on my way. And as I laugh at myself, the struggle is over for a while; what kind of self-respecting dragon would want to hang around and pick on a writer like me? ~~~~~