“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
― Ernest Hemingway
It occurred to me on a cloudy Wednesday morning that I needed to escape. The kind of getaway akin to being so engrossed in a story I can’t help but cheat and flip to the end to find out what happens. It was essential I lose myself in another place so I could expel an escalating melancholic energy; the sort of malaise that occasionally takes hold when a project I’ve been working on finishes or another I’m excited about falls through.
And then it dawned on me: that’s why I write. I prefer distraction.
With writing I have the opportunity to be transported into someone else’s world and, for a short time, borrow from their circumstances. Through words I find meaning in a trifling piece scheduled for a marketing rubric in a trade magazine. And, in prose, I find the motivation to continue even when tomorrow initially feels a little dim.
Cathleen Calkins 