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I've enjoyed reading your comments about yesterday's post, and I think we can all agree that Lucinda hit a grand slam with her list, which is very witty and also wise. I especially liked her idea of having a life. It reminded me of a film from the 80's called CROSS CREEK, starring Mary Steenburgen (I loved her) as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings who wrote THE YEARLING.

Anyway. Marjorie wants to escape to a quiet life in Florida so she can write, but THE PEOPLE THERE JUST WON'T LEAVE HER ALONE. They keep infringing on her writing time. They keep dragging her back into the land of the living. And then one day she realizes that STORIES are found in the land of the living, not just in the life of the mind. THE YEARLING grows out of that important realization.

We all fantasize about holing up and devoting ourselves to that novel inside of us. And little periods of holing up now and then are great. But to do it forever?

Not a good thing for a writer.