The First One to Speak Loses

Epigraph is from one of my favorite books.

What we, or at any rate what I, refer to confidently as memory—meaning a moment, a scene, a fact that has been subjected to a fixative and thereby rescued from oblivion—is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling. Too many conflicting emotional interests are involved for life ever to be wholly acceptable, and possibly it is the work of the storyteller to rearrange things so that they conform to this end. In any case, in talking about the past we lie with every breath we draw.

—William Maxwell, So Long, See You Tomorrow

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Day Four: July 5, 2011

Dinner @ Dorland
Uninvited Guest

Exciting day @ Dorland, Cottage #1.

1. Screen installed on back door (by Caretaker, Robert) to concrete slab patio. . . necessary, but took time away from my Prep Work.

2. Read and annotated 5 Trevor stories. If you read one: "A Happy Family" (Deceptive title). Time for another? Read: "Going Home."

3. Started another novel: Father of the Rain by Lily King. (Am I converting?)

4. Actually thought about new ending for Chapter Seven: "At the Door."

5. Had uninvited guest on concrete patio: A RATTLE SNAKE. (Look closely at photo)

6. Stayed calm and assisted Robert to capture the snake.

7. Had a glass of wine to maintain my equanimity.

8. Made dinner and had another glass of wine. (Shrimp Salad by MP, Salad Dressing by CD)

9. Composed tonight's blog entry.

10. Later, plan to scribble the revised ending.

I leave you with a JCO quote from her essay "READING AS A WRITER: The Artist as Craftsman"

"Because as fellow writers we realize we're not reading mere words, a "product"; we understand that we're reading the end result of another writer's effort, the sum total of his or her imaginative and editorial decisions, which may have been complex (111)."

COMPLEX--Indeed it is.

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1 comment:

  1. Karen KJuly 6, 2011 at 10:20 AM

    Dinner looks great and healthy! Rattlesnake not so good.
    Sounds like you're in a zone, and truly are an inspiration to us all.

    ReplyDelete

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