A Slant of Wind: A Summer Afternoon’s Reflections on Writing and Publishing

The prolific Georges Simenon was convinced that "writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness." "Let's face it," William Styron concluded, "writing is hell."But now, under the oaks on a summer afternoon, I remember none of that. I remember only the joy, the exuberance of taking an idea and working with it, of daily tackling and solving the myriad challenges each chapter, each page, every paragraph can present, of reading over a page that seems just right and adding another page to it, and then another. Of seeing pages accumulate and reading them again and again, with mounting satisfaction and pleasure.