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Heidi Peterson is a lover of wide-spreading land, summer dust, white pounding waterfalls, and mountain tops; also of good dark coffee and rich stories. Most of all she's a lover of the One who is the Word, the Word made flesh. You can visit her additional blog (where she shares more about books, movies, and further marvels of life) at: Along the Brandywine.
Sigh. Just exactly like Hemingway's "Write one true sentence" advice. And so hard to live up to!
ReplyDeleteHamlette,
DeleteI haven't heard the Hemingway quote and it sounds great! Do you have it in its entirety?
But of course! It's from A Moveable Feast:
Delete"...sometimes when I was starting a new story and I could not get it going, I would sit in front o the fire and squeeze the peel of the little oranges into the edge of the flame and watch the sputter of blue that they made. I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, 'Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.' So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut that scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written."
I missed an 'f' -- it's supposed to be "in front of the fire."
DeleteHamlette!
DeleteThank you and that is good! I really like the bit, too, where he says, "You have always written before and you will write now." For those moments when you have to push on, believing that what you're writing is real. :)
Yes! I also find it so comforting to know that even Hemingway had times when he had trouble writing and had to remind himself he could do it.
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