On Ghostwriting

People always seemed to assume the main difficulty in working as a ghostwriter would be the lack of visibility. But the problem with being a ghost wasn’t so much the invisible part, it was the dead part.

Billy’s Lament

I’ve been trying to write this thing but this thing won’t write. I wanted to paint something but it wouldn’t go. Ever wanted to think something? – something in particular you could almost name but didn’t entirely know? I have. That thing wouldn’t think of it.

Co-Creation

The collected notes and notebooks of decades were with me out on the slate floor of the porch in the sun – a couple of stacks of writings and drawings, ideas and outlines, in every sort of form, from the oft-mentioned Moleskine notebooks to CVS Chunky Pads to sleek Apica books to notes written on the backs of check carbons (I have a lot of those). (Folded into thirds they fit in my jeans pocket on walks.) Forming a third unit or stack of sorts, I had with me for diversion a volume of Proust I’ve almost finished and one of John Hart (unopened – I have no idea).

I was immediately joined by our two female cats. Pi, the young one, got hold of a red file folder filled with recently excavated ancient notes and started biting the edges of papers and pushing the folder all around the porch. Lily, blind, beautiful and recently turned 18, found a way to recline against one of the piles of notes and the books, while Pi ceased her labors and stretched belly-up behind the other pile. I sat at the edge of the porch with my back to one of the posts, facing the sun. Lily and Pi, who’ve recently suffered incursions by a local feral tomcat, seemed to relax with me positioned between them and the yard.

I had felt on the verge of something, which was why I had the notes out there in the first place, but couldn’t bring myself to move anything. I sat for as long as I could in the sun, petting the two, then left them the books and my notes. The great synthesis, if there is one, can wait.

Sunset, Wednesday, 21 April 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

If today were a novel, the sunset wouldn’t be the ending but the chapter in which the strange salmon and purple light changes everything.

Same Old Same Old

Why is it
That looking out the same old window
We do not just always write the same old poem?
Why is it
That looking out the same old window
We feel almost compelled to avoid in every way we can writing the same old poem
Or even mentioning the same old window? 

Sunset, Tuesday, 6 April 2010

William Theodore Van Doren. Sunset from Stony Point, Albemarle County, Va. Oil on watercolor block, 16 x 20.

Having had my head down in work all day – proofing, light editing, some layout of text – there hasn’t been time to sit back and “be a writer.” Now as I’m watching the sun start to go down behind a glaring screen of mica (and that’ll change), there’s no proofing or cleaning up to be done here. This painting’s more like the many ghostwriting jobs I’ve done. The sky and sun are a text they’ve given me, and I give again to you.