Get Out Of Your House (And Into A Library)

Now Playing: Dragonette - Liar

I like to write. I like - though I do not always enjoy - the process of crafting sentences, choosing the exact words and phrasing to achieve the necessary nuance. While there is nothing so neat and elegant as a clever turn of phrase, it is a truth sadly acknowleged by every jaded reader and aspiring scribbler that these specimens are elusive, rarely to be found in the jungles of extant published prose. Furthermore, like many endangered species, these exemplars of expression are loathe to propagate in the laboratories of our assorted notebooks and wordprocessors.

So what's a would-be wordsmith to do? Stare into space and sporadically bang away at a keyboard? Or follow the advice of Ron Koertge?

"Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"

 Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.

Would a Hello Kitty notebook do, do you think?