Hey, it's Edith, and it's Sunday, and I survived another storm!
Here on Long Island, we get the rag-tag ends of hurricanes almost every year. Once in a while we get a whole hurricane. Everyone is predicting the next "big one," which hasn't come in over half a century and is certainly due. So when our storms ride on by us, no matter how bad they were, we feel lucky.
This one wasn't so bad for my area. And today, in the aftermath, the sun is bright and world smells green and fresh and new.
Daisy today, shielding herself from the sun with my new hibiscus
So, no writing for me today.
And of course, how could I write yesterday, with the storm raging? Why, the computer could have been shut off at any moment! And I had to watch the rain.
And it's the Labor Day Weekend.
There are three thousand other reasons not to write today.
I got a million of them.
There is only one good one
...and I haven't found it yet.
A writer needs discipline, and guilt.
Guilt, I got.
Discipline is easier some days than others.
A deadline, a due date, whatever you call it: that's the best discipline of all, whether it's self-imposed, or in a contract you've signed.
Writing is an escape for the writer and the reader. But some days the world is so beautiful, you don't want to leave it for a minute, for any reason. So when I get back to the computer I'll try to keep writing a book that keeps you reading, come rain or come shine. That means writing a book that makes me return to it for the same reason. Forget similes, dialogues and first or third person narratives. Writing a book that competes with the world - that's the hard part of writing.
A snoopy Edith wants to know: What are the books you couldn't stop reading, no matter what? And what was that 'what?'