A Writer’s Work Ethic

F. Scott Fitzgerald, when he was ill and nearing the end, said he could only write a single page in a day. But it was an excellent page.

I am now entering that end-of-it-all Fitzgerald territory. Some of the best writing I have done, but very little of it.

I have been writing on the essay project, Naked Thinking.

And so, I am delving deep into the darkness inside. And there sits that never-ending festering battle between light and darkness. A writer knows how to accurately depict the hellish reality of things he has always kept locked away inside. H. P. Lovecraft found a lot of racist hatred and existential terror inside. Dickens found regret in love misplaced and the cruelty of men to lesser men. Mark Twain found grief at outliving most of his children and his beloved wife. There is a lot of yeast applied to leaven the bread of life in the interior of every writer. And most of it ranges from unpleasant to deeply disturbing.

And so I am nearing the end. I do not know how close. But I am writing like the dervish whirls, fast and furious and knowing I will do it until the dance is over.