When I sat down to write this morning, it was one of those scary moments.  I’ve been very organized about this new novel I’m writing, getting the structure down, plotting it out.  But today, I went into it knowing I had no idea what was supposed to come next.  So, of course I did what any self-respecting writer does — I played solitaire on my computer, looked up old boyfriends’ names on google, reread something I’ve reread already ten times.  The usual.  But then I had a tiny glimmer of an idea.  Before I could talk myself out of it, I picked up my pencil and my notebook and turned away from the computer. I wrote half a sentence, then another, and — presto — it worked.  I was writing a new section I hadn’t even thought of before.  Boom.  Just like that. The idea came out of nowhere, or rather (like I tell my students), out of that electric little corner in the back of your head, somewhere deep beneath the hairline, above the nape.  You know, the back of your mind.  And to think I’ve been telling my students the truth all this time.  

So, since I’m smiling, I’ll offer you one of my favourite little somethings for your day, too:
Well, art is art, isn’t it?  Still, on the other hand, water is water!  And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.  Now — you tell me what you know.

Grouch Marx