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It has been too many years now since I reveled in Hemingway who I so love, and therefore since I posted a hemingWay of the Day. I blame graduate school, among other things. Lately I’m trying to read a few short stories here and there, and so of course I’ve got The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway nearby.

In the preface to section 1, “The First Forty-Nine,” Hem writes,

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.

This is such a powerful statement, and one that I’ve thought of often in reference to other aspects of life: money, for example; energy; youth; my degenerating knees. The bicycle one hangs on the wall and keeps pristine and never rides, seems to me a waste. I had not thought about life and experience dulling one’s writing tool; and I had not necessarily thought of that tool being reconditionable in these terms. I needed this thought right now. Thank you, Papa.

Filed under: hemingWay of the Day | Tagged: authors, Hemingway, writing/craft |