On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

For years I dreamed of having the sort of massive oak slap that would dominate a room..In 1981 I got the one I wanted and placed it in the middle of a spacious, skylighted study in the rear of the house. For six years I sat behind that desk either drunk or wrecked out of my mind...A year or two after I sobered up, I got rid of the monstrosity and put in a living-room suite where it has been...In the early nineties, before they moved on to their own lives, my kids sometimes came up in the evening to watch a basketball game or a movie and eat pizza..I got another desk-it's handmade, beautiful, and half the size of the T. rex desk. I put it at the far west end of the office, in a corner under the eave...I'm sitting under it now, a fifty-three-year-old man with bad eyes, a gimp leg, and no hangover. I'm doing what I now how to do, and as well as I know how to do it. I came through all the stuff I told you about..and now I'm going to tell you as much as I can about the job...It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around. Read more