"Pursuing originality, the would-be creator works alone. In loneliness, one assumes a responsibility for oneself that one cannot fulfill." âWendell Barry, talking about bigger things than only writing, but also in terms reminding me of Maggie Nelson's "A Sort of Leaning Against" and Cormac McCarthy's "ugly fact" that "books are made out of books, the novel depends for its life on the novels that have been written." A good feeling today then, to sit out to do my own work surrounded by the works of others. To feel like I'm working alongside the great books on my shelves, not against them or upon their shoulders or in despair of their achievements, which my own work in progress can so far only dream of approaching.















