Francis Street, Dublin"You write until you come to a place where you will still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again... When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through."
--Ernest Hemingway
3 comments:
I'm not sure if he was referring to alcohol or the creative juice or both. Creative people tend to have alot of funk inside. I think that's much of where the creation comes from. Alcohol dilutes the pain, but only for a while. Thank God for deep hurts, we'd have much less art without it.
GF-- this entry both breaks my heart and makes me ecstatic for you. Drink to celebrate?
Pierre - While Hem certainly did his fair share of drinking, in this case the metaphor's about the writing itself. It comes from a wonderful interview he gave in the Paris Review - a dear friend gave me the 4-volume boxed set of interviews last year, and they are fascinating for a behind-the-scenes glimpse at how writers write. Highly recommended!
Jackie - Yes, it'd be keeping in the spirit of Hemingway to do so. Just make sure I don't take the solidarity too far - no bullfighting, wartime ambulance driving, etc.
Post a Comment