Talking and writing

I'm actively procrastinating honoring a review commission. It'll happen, just not today. The ideas are coalescing. The images and wider-world references and associations have begun to arrange themselves. I've not written it, however.

Today instead I did a bit of yard work and noodled about in my studio and on the Web. Here's something I found on line this afternoon via a link at Smith Magazine:

Of course I don't think only about writing. I spend time with my wife, family and friends. I read a lot, watch a lot of politics on TV. But prose is beavering along beneath, writing itself. When it comes time to type it is an expression, not a process. My mind has improved so much at this that it's become clearly apparent to me. The words, as e. e. cummings wrote, come out like a ribbon and lie flat on the brush. He wasn't writing about toothpaste. In my fancy, I like to think he could have been writing about prose.

Yes, I had that cummings line in mind before I began. I knew I was heading for it. By losing the ability to speak, I have increased my ability to communicate. I am content.

The writer is film critic Roger Ebert. The quote is from a Sun-Times blog post that dates from late October of this year. I recommend it.