WRITING
Writing must be everything or it’s nothing at all, but all it really needs to be is you. The first draft of everything is not good enough, but it’s also possible to edit something to death. Don’t listen to music while you work, they say, because it fills your mind with another’s words; but the silence inspires you as often as it makes you despair. Never use adverbs or semicolons, but always remember that breaking rules is a striking way to make a point. Writing should only supplement your life, not be your life, but you must also breathe it, and touch it, and see it in all things, and you must only be a writer if there is no other option, not one other possible life for you. The answer does not exist; the conversation is the universe. Then–just as you are about to leap from your skyscraping tower, just as you are about to give up on this life and kill the only piece of you that tries to make sense–Hemingway whispers from a window in Paris, a hundred years ago and for all time: “You have always written before and you will write now.” You blush. The moment’s here. Your hand stiffens, relaxes, reproduces.
I wrote this for you while wrestling with my muse, struggling–as always–to produce beauty, enlightenment, and comfort through the noise. And I felt you there with me the whole time.
Love always,
your Mister
Lonely Hearts Chapel 