Since my first book was published in 2014, the question that has been recurring and preoccupying many who contact me, whether it be friends or friends of friends, is: How do they do it? What is the way they can fulfill their dream and publish a book? I was there too, asking and researching, and I will always help with generous advice from my experience and the knowledge I have accumulated. But there is one thing that those who want to be an author of more than one book do not take into account before they can call themselves authors. And it is something I call it – “the surrounding.” Launches, reading evenings, fairs, book week, publications, and when you know enough, then also training others. All of these and more have one small problem – while you are doing all these “surroundings,” you do not have time to sit down and write the next piece.
I pondered this even more intensely this week when I read the following paragraph: "From the newspapers he learned that writers, painters, and musicians held events almost every evening at which enthusiastic revolutionaries, too busy to bother themselves with real work, were wont to tell about their plans. Poets recited poems incessantly, forgetting that they should also write some." (p. 95).
On the one hand, I, too, in 2014, wanted to be so busy that people would want to hear what I had to say and that I would have tens and hundreds of thousands of readers. On the other hand, I don't remember a single book week I participated in during which I was able to create and write something worthwhile.
There is a kind of inward focus in the work of writing.
Yes, there is inspiration brought from external experiences, but the work is from within me and is created after an internal processing of my experiences of the world and myself. My writing has produced interesting works and fascinating encounters for me, which I would not replace. The truth is that I am not as busy as, for example, Meir Shalev, may his memory be blessed. I have hundreds of readers, not tens and thousands of thousands, I hold a few workshops, not several times a month, and reader meetings occur once in a while.
However, after the publication of my third book, I have matured in my favor, that's how I see it. I have dealt with my good audience and learned to organize my time so that I don't give up almost daily writing on my emerging book. Creation is the main artery of my life and I am grateful for that.
Gissin, in his book Christopher MorleyThe whole book is looking for the thing the book is named after: Where the blue beginsGisin is a dog and this is not a spoiler because it was said at the beginning and in this sense, it was innovative for its time and since then we have known books written from a refreshingly non-human perspective, like The Jewish Dog By Asher Kravitz (2007). However, Gissin is human because despite the cool names of the characters, which are actually some kind of paraphrase of dog species, he talks and does human things, such as smoking, eating, and dressing like a human, and all of his experiences could have been those of a normal human character, so using a dog as a character feels like "just a scene" and nothing more.
One paragraph in the third chapter describes the essence of the entire book: "Horizons were a great disappointment to him. On distant days he would often slip away from home shortly after sunrise and feast his eyes on the blue that rested on the horizon. Here, around him, were the clear colors of the world he knew; but there, on the hills, were trees and spaces of a different, more heavenly hue. That soft blue light, if he could only reach it, would surely be the beginning of the thing he sought." (E.M. 27-28). From there he sets out on a journey to explore "the neighbor's blue grass" or as we say these days, "to search for himself."
I could say that a book should be read through the eyes of the era in which it was written and give it credit for innovation. That is true in some cases, but after reading Frances on wheels The author's and I know of several dozen who read it after me, because, come on, it's the cutest book in the world! So I have expectations from Morley. So, even though here and there I marked interesting sentences. I enjoyed the trip he took in New York back in the day and I identified with his approach to black coffee "His favorite aid to clear thinking" (p. 101), I got pretty bored with Gissin the human dog and he exhausted me with his ramblings about the New Testament. In the end I felt like I had here what looked like uncensored excerpts from Morley's diary, which only for him had proper logic and theme.
Regarding the question whether remaining או loose From my private library – so probably I will release Pass it on to those who want to experiment for themselves because, as Morley wrote, "Don't judge the waste of others' time by calculations that concern yourself." (p. 76).
Book details:
The Place Where Blue Begins by: Christopher Morley, published by Ariel Cohn, August 2024. (First published in English in 1922).
Pleasant reading and may good words be by your side always,
Lily