Favorite Quote #5 is from Sherry Simpson : “My new motto: Don't half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing.”Now this is a bit tricky, as I sit here typing while lining up in my head the next four things I need to do, and my email is dinging and I have four tabs open (only four!), and my husband is in the next room putting away clothes and I’m feeling guilty for not helping. I have not closed my study door, which is a sure sign I am going to stay scattered, that I’m willing myself to stay spread out into the world.Then there’s the whole issue of “marketing” if you’re a writer. We have to keep our active presence in the readerly world, God help us, if we want anyone to care when our next book comes out. Did I mention that I’m retired?Here is a thing called “Work Schedule, 1932-1933.” Henry Miller wrote these while he was working on Tropic of Cancer. My friend, the poet Teresa Scollon, passed them on to me.Commandments:1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!5. When you can’t create you can work.6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow Down. Exclude.10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards. What strikes me about this list is the word “joyously.” Whoever did more than one thing at once joyously? Joy is when we are absorbed. We’re not “having a good time,” we’re beyond labeling what we’re having. We’re doing. I wonder if we can do those two things at once—label something joyous and feel joyous?
Here’s a poem about that. It’s by Chana Bloch. (from Blood Honey, Autumn House Press, 2009)Wild HoneyA puddle of sun on the wooden floor.The infant crawls to it, licks it,dips a hand in and out,letting the wild honeytrickle through his fingers.Then that voice from on high—Look at the pretty color!—wipes up the glory with a rag of language.
My Favorite Quote #5
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