in going where you have to go, and doing what you have to do, and seeing what you have to see, you dull and blunt the instrument you write with. but i would rather have it bent and dull and know i had to put it on the grindstone again and hammer it into shape and put a whetstone to it, and know that I had something to write about, than to have it bright and shining and nothing to say, or smooth and well-oiled in the closet, but unused.
now it is necessary to get to the grindstone again. i would like to live long enough to write three more novels and twenty-five more stories. i know some pretty good ones.
-ernest hemingway
1938

so rather than charge into the murky waters without an azimuth or without a proper reflection on today's sun, i'll value now. now coming after yesterdays and laying awake, adroit before dawn. note how foggy and clear those dawns can be.

remember how to deal with loss. not that you ever dealt with it, or you maybe you still are. but live with it, and know it may never go away. and then you can fall asleep at night. it hurts, in the stomach and in the chest. it makes you curl up and fall apart in one. but to make it there, where the light glows again. that's where you want to be. and you won't see it then, just think that it's there. fool yourself into believing the truth.

if you're going through hell, keep going.
-winston churchill.

if you're trying to figure out what sort of darkness is present in my life that is coming out in my writing i'm sorry that you're mistaken. mistaken that my life is anything but kind right now. mistaken that i would regard darkness with scorn or temerity.

satisfied in the waiting for the news to come.