I was going to write more, but I didn't.

For the past three or four years I've gotten the daily "Writer's Almanac" in my inbox every morning. I used to read it religiously, as I took my morning coffee and began looking over the work to be done for the day. [Ed. Note: new rule: one adverb per sentence. Per paragraph, if at all possible.] But lately they've piled up and my pack-rat soul can't bear to trash them. It helps that my webmail account holds a plethora of messages, so I put them away for a chance to read the rest of them, some afternoon when it rains and I'm not motivated to be productive. Usually, months' worth of W.A. emails pile up before I look at them, shuffled away in a file in my email account.

But tonight I've just gotten back from drinking heffeweizens with the bluegrass band that will be staying at my house, and I'm too restless to actually settle down just yet. So, instead, I opened my latest W.A., and found (for once, it feels like) a note that tugs a bit at the heartstrings. It's the part about how Melville and Hawthorne used to live near one another, and how their writings improved and even became more prolific during the peak of their friendship. I'm not a fanatic about either of their works -- I'm kind of a contemporary/post-modern lady -- but I chew my fingernails at the thought of not being able to write these days, and the idea of two writers prompting one another to be productive by virtue of proximity makes me sigh with envy. Time was when my friends and I would pass works back and forth for criticism (or preferably, praise) and to not be working on something was rare. For my own good, I'd almost pay some of my writer-friends to move near me, or for me to move to be close to them. It would be interesting to see what I'd write these days.



At least my dearest of dear old friends will be here soon. The Dirty Hippie (who isn't dirty, but is assuredly a hippie in the most traditional sense of the word) is coming to visit for a couple days starting Tuesday, and between the cooking and the drinking I'm wondering if there won't be a literary discussion or five. I can't wait.