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It is said that we have ten seconds

ake of a ht before Notes in the dark, eyes closed, catch bits and shards and find what the drea self would say to the self awake

I tried that for a while with a tape recorder, talkingby the pillow, the moment I woke It didn’t work I reht, but I could never understand later what the sounds on the tape were saying There was only this odd croaking toh sleep were death itself

A pen with paper worked better, and when I learned not to write one line on top of another, I began to know about the travels of that part of me that never sleeps at all Lots ofon, lots of schools, lots of oceans plowing into high cliffs, lots of strange trivia and now and then a rare one by, or from one yet to be

It wasn’t much later that I noticed that otten When I couldn’t remember what happened last Wednesday, or even last Saturday, I began keeping a journal of days as well as of nights, and for a long tiotten most of my life

When I gathered up a few cardboard boxes of writing, though, and put together my favorite best stories of the last fifteen years into this book, I found that I hadn’t forgotten quite so e fantasies struck me as I flew, I had written—stories and articles instead of pages in a journal, several hundred of thehtthat didn’t matter to me, that didn’t make some difference inthat promise

There are ties, however, that are not very ritten—I have to throwThere’s Soulls and I’ve Never Heard the Wind, the first stories of azine The early stories are here because soh the ariting, and in the ideas he reached for are souy

Early in the year that my Ford was repossessed, I wrote a note to me across soht find it:

How did you survive to this day? From here it looks like a et published? Any films?

What totally unconceived new projects? Is it all better and happier? What do you think of my fears?

—RB 22 March 1968

Maybe it’s not too late to appear in a smoke puff and answer his questions

You survived because you decided against quitting when the battle wasn’t much fun … that was the only miracle required Yes, Jonathan finally was published The filinning Please don’t waste your ti afraid

Angels are always saying that sort of thing: don’t fret, fear not, everything’s going to be OK Me-then would probably have frowned atout of food and I’ve been broke since Tuesday!”

Maybe not, though He was a hopeful and trusting person Up to a point If I tell hiraphs, cut this and add that, he’ll ask that I get lost, please, just run along back into the future, that he knows very well how to say what he wants to say

An old maxim says that a professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit So, the aard beginner beca amateur, and still is I never could think of myself as a Writer, as a complicated soul who lives only for words in ink In fact, the only time I can write is when sorabsto the typewriter I leave heel ernail scratches in the walls every inch of the way

It took far too long to finish some of these stories Three years to write Letter fro over and over, knowing it had to be written so there was a lot thatthere Forced to the typewriter, all I’d do was surround myself with heaps of cru and snarling and go wrap hand in a fresh notebook, a trick that soht idea kept co out of my pencil the color of lead and ten times heavier and I’d h sole can be crunched and thrown at a wall as easily as notebook paper