Reflections of a working writer and reader
"Isak Dinesen said that she wrote a little every day, without hope and without despair. Someday I'll put that on a three-by-five card and tape it to the wall beside my desk. I have some three-by-five cards on the wall now. 'Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.' Ezra Pound. It is not everything by ANY means, but if a writer has 'fundamental accuracy of statement' going for him,he's at least on the right track. "I have a three-by-five up there with this fragment of a sentence from a story by Chekov: '. . . and suddenly everything became clear to him.' I find these words filled with wonder and possibility. I love their simple clarity, and the hint of revelation that's implied. There is mystery, too. What has been unclear before? Why is it just now becoming clear? What's happened? Most of all - what now? There are consequences as a result of such sudden awakenings. I feel a sharp sense of relief - and anticipation. "I overheard the writer Geoffrey Wolff say "No cheap tricks" to a group of writing students. That should go on a three-by-five card. I'd amend it a little to 'No tricks.' Period. I hate tricks." Raymond Carver
With thanks and acknowledgements to Hemingway’s Paris and Jacob Russell’s Barking Dog
But if your browser won’t let you watch the video, goto YouTube and watch it there.
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Plus fours – surely due for a revival.
There’s something very poignant about old photographs – small parcels of time, captured and frozen, leaving you wondering what had gone before, and what happened next?
What was each of them thinking behind the posed smile and the raised glass? And those in the background, making one-off random appearances in history’s scrapbook, nameless and unremembered. What became of them after going home and saying, “I saw Ernest Hemingway tonight”?
Fascinating. Is Hemingway wearing Chico Marx’s hat or did Chico nick it from Hemingway? I think we should be told.