Over at Harriet, Patricia Smith reveals writer's angst: I'm sitting in front of my laptop, bleary-eyed, listening to a muted Lightnin' Hopkins and staring at the 17th line of a poem that I've been working on for four years....This profession--this writing of measured and meaningful lines--is for crazy people...Just a line? They really don't get it, do they? There's absolutely no way to explain that nine words, tweaked mercilessly at least once a week for the past 1460 days, can feel so vital, so damned necessary, and not tomorrow, but right now.
And what makes a writer obsess over a line? Craftsmanship and the desire to create one's style. And what's the most important aspect of style? As Sam, the surrogate father of Halley in Athol Fugard's "Master Harold"... and the Boys explains, "The secret is to make it look easy."
Click here to view the rest of the post: It's 1:31 a.m....
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3 comments:
KEY. And so I am not the only obsessed one. Good.
AND: don't forget to spin some disks Labor Day weekend, you know where!
et bien sur: not just music, whatever you think of.
Rent, I don't think we would have continued writing for so many years if we hadn't been obsessed.
Will spin a few over at your place.
EPA!
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