The Writing Life

Whiles they each other cross,
Lives, honors, lands, and all, hurry to loss.

• W. Lucy Henry 6.1 (4.3.53-4)

I’ll doubt there’s a serious definition of what The Writing Life really looks like. Varies, as that’s the best guess. Which is what this about, as we’re making it up as we go along.

When Mercury is Retrograde¹, as it was, there are all kinds of foul-ups. Material goods aren’t delivered, or they aren’t delivered in a timely fashion.

My first image of The Writing Life, as a serious adult, or an adult-aged person? I was in Arizona, in school, and I imagined that “writers” should have black turtleneck sweaters, drink little cups of espresso, smoke clove cigarettes, and maybe wear a black beret. Paris, 1920-ish?

November launched, yet again, National Write-a-Novel Month. For me, November is the run-up to my birthday with dark days ahead, and noting, reflections of the teased imagery of what a writer should look like. In hundred-plus heat? Black turtleneck sweater don’t have much of place in Arizona. Or South Texas. Maybe in a corner or closet.

I spent a portion of my youth New Mexico and Arizona, kicking about the American southwest, always fancied myself as a bit of a desert rat. I’m not, certainly not anymore. While I love the beach and the Texas coast²? Yeah, not a beach person totally. Note the locations, though, never much north of the 30th parallel? According to some geography, that’s “Arid, semi-arid, or subtropical, depending.” The littoral zone³, the Texas Coast⁴, surely, that has to be tropical or at least subtropical by the very definition. Points west? Arid.

None of this is really cool enough for sweaters, not in the long run, I might need one for a few days in the winter, and there, for a while, in my career, I endeavored to be a sharped-dressed man, but let’s face it, I’m all about the comforts, fashion follows form.

What that means? The affectation of the black turtleneck sweater, the beret or Hemingway’s watch cap? Probably not realistic, and probably not (for) me.

The Writing Life

I take time to “pencil in”⁵ notes, but I long switched up to a digital format for such data input, many, many years ago⁶. The digital format, even more common these days with our phones in hand?

From a personal sense of style that is more comfort in design and taste to a more practical approach to technical challenges, The Writing Life really doesn’t have much of a look, not to me. Not something that is easily defined.

• Post hoc ergo propter hoc
• Vaticinium Ex Eventu

1. See the Portable Mercury Retrograde for details. ↩
2. Big redfish. ↩
3. See the Aquarius horoscope for more on that term. ↩
4. Along the shoreline again. ↩
5. Just for fun, see Cancer horoscope as a point and source. ↩
6. Wet Fuel Cell note. ↩