Telescope outdoor furniture larrsen4/13/2024 ![]() It resonated with me and always with my students. I often shared his column when I taught writing. By writing you were helping order the universe, he claimed, staying faithful to the task of thinking and seeking harmonies in the world. I suspect I am not the exception but rather part of a large family of writers whose novels may not be immediately published but who continue writing because sorting and organizing life and experience through words and stories is what we do.Īnatole Broyard, famed New York Times columnist and literary critic a generation ago, noted the value of the manuscript in the drawer. Then came a long hiatus in publishing fiction. In the late 1980s I published a collection of short stories- No Marble Angels-then a regional best-selling novel- The Dark Path to the River. I’ve been writing a long time, beginning as a journalist then shifting to fiction. Burning Distance and The Far Side of the Desert are being published with a promotional tag suggesting “Jane Austen meets John LeCarré.” Two of these are at last getting published, one in March 2023, the other spring 2024, demonstrating that writers write and eventually publishers publish. In these various venues, I have written four novels. I remember that focus, though I think I was in junior high school then. The conversation seems ephemeral and young to me but important to them. At the moment three coeds a few stools away are bubbling over the boys and boyfriends in their lives. Once when asked my ideal writing environment, I answered without thinking, “In the middle of a newsroom where I’m left alone to write fiction.” I like the hum it concentrates my mind. I can eavesdrop, not to gather anyone’s business or secrets but rather the rhythm of life and conversation while I write from my own thoughts and imagination.īefore the pandemic, this was my modus operandi for decades, writing in restaurants. The clientele ranges from college students to government officials. I order soup or a cheese board, drink soda or a cappuccino and write for hours with the hum of trivial and sometimes consequential conversation around me, but not addressed to me. If I sit at the very end, I can occupy two or three seats-one for me, the others for my work-without inconveniencing anyone. I’ve discovered this corner of a Washington, DC restaurant that has a long bar with plugs underneath for my computer. I’m sitting at a bar sipping club soda and writing.
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