Margarets

Along the lines of “life rewards action” and “ask questions and answers will come” (that’s not really a saying but it suits what I’m trying to do here), I turn to Margaret Atwood.

She is my most admired writer, I love to read her books, and her style seems so easy. She knows things other people don’t know. Her books are not my FAVORITE books, but she is who I would like to write like, if I had a choice.

So currently I’m reading The Blind Assassin, by Ms. Atwood. And after my diatribe on Friday about telling the truth with my writing, I sit down on the train with my Atwood book and I swear, the first thing I read is this:

The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read. Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date. Otherwise you begin excusing yourself. You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.

Impossible, of course.

I pay out my line, I pay out my line, this black thread I’m spinning across the page.

Amazing, I love the right hand writing and the left hand erasing it. Beautiful.

Hard to do with a blog, it’s the opposite of a blog. But it is what I will try to do on my own, see what comes out of it.

I'm just fascinated that this fiction book, from one of my most admired people, provided me some advice right when I needed it.

I'm telling you, I'm a little magic.