Monthly Archives: September 2011

“No writing is wasted. Did you know that sourdough from San Francisco is leavened partly by a bacteria called lactobacillus sanfrancisensis? It is native to the soil there, and does not do well elsewhere. But any kitchen can become an ecosystem. If you bake a lot, your kitchen will become a happy home to wild yeasts, and all your bread will taste better. Even a failed loaf is not wasted. Likewise, cheese makers wash the dairy floor with whey. Tomato gardeners compost with rotten tomatoes. No writing is wasted: the words you can’t put in your book can wash the floor, live in the soil, lurk around in the air. They will make the next words better.”
― Erin Bow

Some mornings it’s hard to get started on the writing I want to do — I have to clear out the pipes first, should do a little notebook writing, often end up just typing a little journal writing into a new document and saving it as a morning write. Do we ever go back and read those morning writings, to get a sense of the trajectory of our lives, the folds and foibles that our hormones and emotions lead us through on a regular basis, to trace where our desires have driven us to (and from)?

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“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
― E.L. Doctorow

Sometimes the writing is hard, like pulling teeth — no, like dragging something out, forcing myself down a road I’m not at all sure I’m meant to be walking on. Is it like that? Wait, is this supposed to be what happens next? How can I know until I write it and find out?

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