Dot Parker

I might repeat to myself, slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound — if I can remember any of the damn things. Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker is, for me, more ideal than real. I don't want to know if she yelled at the grocer, or if she had cats, or if she sometimes wondered what to wear. In my mind, it is always night; she is always between her first and second drinks; she is always cool, sharp and beautiful; she laughs in the face of people who criticize her or find her strange. She is what I want to be if I could burn off all my inadequacies, my self-doubt, my overly developed desire to please, my longing to be loved despite (or because of) my failings. She springs out of me when I get opinionated and incensed, but leaves without a backward glance when I waver under the weight of criticism. She's with me when I flirt, but abandons me when I start to worry about what the flirtee might think of me. She's with me when I'm writing, but goes off to get more cigarettes and another drink when I start to edit.

NaNoWriMo is asking something of me I didn't know it would. Everyday I have to walk forward away from what I did yesterday. I can't go back and fix it, can't even stop to think about it. I need to write, not think about what I wrote, not wonder about what to write, just write. Yesterday is therefore, in a way it rarely has been, dead. I accept that what I wrote yesterday may not be right. And still I write forward, as if it were perfect. It is -- I was going to say a challenge, but in fact, it's more like falling off a cliff. It's terrifying, but very easy. I just keep going without ever having to make a choice about carrying on.

I think that to finish this book I'm going to need a nightly dirty martini and a cigarette in a long holder. And a little more Dorothy please.


NaNoWriMo thought for the day:

I hate writing; I love having written. Dorothy Parker