Tuesday, May 26, 2009

ernest in earnest


"Sometimes, when I was started on a new story and I could not get going, I would sit in front of the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue they made. I would stand out and look over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write on true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." So finally, I would write one true sentence and go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut the scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written."

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