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

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Day Three: July 4, 2013.

Day Three: July 4, 2013. Happy Fourth of July. Quiet here up on the mountain. Up early read quite a bit this morning and worked all day. Combed through the penultimate and last chapters, and they need a great deal of work. Considering completely rewriting the final story/chapter and will sleep on it tonight.

Thinking about Flannery O'Conner's essays on writing in Mystery and Manners: "I think the way to read a book is always to see what happens, but in a good novel, more always happens than we are able to take in at once, more happens than meets the eye" (71). As a writer (and reader) I try to experience the narrative on more than one level. But when one writes it's an organic process and ultimately what's underneath surfaces.

My brain is like a sponge . .  . We'll see what I've absorbed tomorrow.

BTW: Had to break out the Caladryl and spray insect repellent.



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