Sunday, September 21, 2003
I'm listening to the new Bowie. Good stuff. Retro-ish Bowie.
Listening and dreading writing and trying not to dread writing. Because I can't lock up today. Yesterday was inexcusable. I tried to salvage the day by reading, because, I tell myself, reading is sort of like writing, etc., etc., and that's rationalization, but hey, don't knock it, right? I read George R. R. Martin's "A Song for Lya" and Tim Lebbon's "The Stuff of the Stars, Leaking." I watched The Animatrix with Spooky and fell asleep to Reptilicus. And now I'm here again, in my chair, at my desk, with Blake and Milton and Yeats, unhelpful though they might be.
Standing at the edge of a skyscraper roof, or a cliff, or any other falling-off point, and all I have to do is let go and jump. No, I don't even have to jump. Art does not require jumping, only letting go. Only commitment. Only. No nets or even the reassurance of a concrete sidewalk to break the descent. To expect that, or any other guarantee, would be whining. And I must never whine. Just finish the damn book and be done with it and move along to the next one. Lose these illusions of control that hold me back. Commitment to the plunge, not control. I cannot save this novel from the whimsical savagery or indifference of critics or readers or editors or Amazon.com "reviewers."
I feel small and shabby.
And there's nothing in front of me but The End, just over there, beyond commitment. All I have to do is take that one small step . . .
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