Writing time

Writing is Re: writing

“Well if it isn’t Mr. Asshole Deer Hunter and his literary pretensions!

ife as a peaceable, civilian observer of deer has resumed without great occasion on Galiano Island, though I do feel like they’re looking at me differently. I try to keep the wise words of Sopranos FBI agent Skip Lipari in mind: “Remember Sal, you’re the one that’s different.” The deer here can’t possibly know what I did on Haida Gwaii, what I’ve fed my family and friends. And yet the alacrity with which they bound into the roadside woods, all four cloven hooves leaving the ground at once, seems new. My reputation is spreading.

Not really. The preceding paragraph is purple prose, mostly padding, content production. It’s been two weeks since my last essay and for half that time I’ve grown increasingly self-conscious, more and more anxious, about not having put anything into the world. Or nothing anyone can see. I’m on Galiano with my friend the mystery author Sam Wiebe, for a Barton Fink à deux, a collaborative writers’ retreat during which we’re trying to write a crime-comedy script for a concept we have been batting back and forth to each other for more than five years. In fact, the desire for a collaborator on this particular idea was the occasion for our having met in the first place. Having arrived Monday afternoon with nothing written down, at Thursday midday we stand at 60-something pages and brimming with confidence that the week will produce a first draft. Recreating the experience of living with a roommate is terrific inspiration for getting work done.