In My View, Nineteen Pounds Of Old

Muses Are Fickle, And Many A Writer, Peering Into The Voice, Has Escaped Paralysis By Ascribing The Creative Responsibility To A Talisman: A Lucky Charm, A Brand Of Paper, But Most Often A Writing Instrument. Am I Writing Well? Thank My Pen. Am I Writing Badly? Don't Blame Me Blame My Pen. By Such Displacements Does The Fearful Imagination Defend Itself.

It Is A Truism Of Epistolary Psychology That, For Example, A Christmas Thank-you Note Written On December 26 Can Say Any Old Thing, But If You Wait Until February, You Are Convinced That Nothing Less Than Middlemarch Will Do.

Something Amazing Happens When The Rest Of The World Is Sleeping. I Am Glued To My Chair. I Forget That I Ever Wanted To Do Anything But Write. The Crowded City, The Crowded Apartment, And The Crowded Calendar Suddenly Seem Spacious. Three Or Four Hours Pass In A Moment; I Have No Idea What Time It Is, Because I Never Check The Clock. If I Chose To Listen, I Could Hear The Swish Of Taxis Bound For Downtown Bars Or The Soft Saxophone Riffs That Drift From A Neighbor's Window, But Nothing Gets Through. I Am Suspended In A Sensory Deprivation Tank, And The Very Lack Of Sensation Is Delicious.

I Am Very Grateful To The Electronic World For Making My Life Easier, But There Is Something About Holding A Book - The Smell And The World Of Association. Even When E-books Are Perfected, As They Surely Will Be, It Will Be Like Being In Bed With A Very Well-made Robot Rather Than A Warm, Soft, Human Being Whom You Love.

Books Wrote Our Life Story, And As They Accumulated On Our Shelves (and On Our Windowsills, And Underneath Our Sofa, And On Top Of Our Refrigerator), They Became Chapters In It Themselves.