For my own writing, I like to watch the boxing matches, watch how the left jab is used, the overhand right, the left hook, the uppercut, the counter punch. I like to watch them dig in, come off the canvas. There is something to be learned, something to be applied to the art of writing, the way of writing. You have just one chance and then it's gone. There are only pages left, you might as well make them smoke.
Classical music, cigars, the computer make the writing dance, holler, laugh. The nightmare life helps too.
Each day as I walk into that racetrack am blasting my hours to shit. But I still have the night. What do other writers do? Stand before the mirror and examine their ear lobes? And then write about them. Or their mothers. Or how to Save the World. Well, they can save it for me by not writing that dull stuff. That slack and withered drivel. Stop! Stop! Stop! I need something to read. Isn't there anything to read? I don't think so. If you find it, let me know. No don't. I know: you wrote it. Forget it. Go take a dump.
I remember a long raging letter I got one day from a man who told me I had no right to say that I didn't like Shakespeare. Too many youth believe me and just not bother to read Shakespeare. I had no right to take this stance. On and on about that. I didn't answer him. But I will here.
Screw you, buddy. And I don't like Tolstoy either!
The Captain Is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship Page 9