~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Lines upon lines upon rows upon –
They pile up in the corners on the steps in the bathroom by my bed
Hanging around hoping someone will need them
Lines upon lines upon rows upon
“Of the making of books there is no end.” Ecclesiastics 12:12
There are three manuscripts under my desk, bored with themselves, One in my Documents, withering, abandoned, Another written in pencil, so I can no longer decipher it, Several plots floating in and out of my consciousness And the two that have been rejected. Even though they’re full of Waves of w’s, mountains of m’s, forests of f’s, nutshells of n’s i’s and j’s and !’s everywhere, peering up, and down. “Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.” Ben Johnson
L’s loop along quite comfortably; e’s, most important of letters, ease across the page, X’s make a mark, not that one regularly uses an X; nice to have if you can’t recall your name. So many configurations of the alphabet lolling inside my computer as I write as fast as I can Plotting madly, metaphoring and simile-ing loops and mountains and forests and nutshells…. “Dear Contributor: Thank you for not sending us anything. It suits our needs.” Snoopy’s editor
With at least a million words in the English language to choose from And with a lot of procrastination going on unless one is preternaturally methodical, it’s a wonder there are 4 million books published in the U.S. and 2.2 million published in the world (according to different sources, obviously), I’m unsure of how many are published. But books are not dying yet.
A simple alphabet of 26 letters can assemble from a million words in 365 days to publish 2.2 million books or 4 million books [?] That is remarkable. Because this has been a day when the alphabet and the words were not jibing with me, I took a personal day. A born-to-read-day.
Somebody else’s plethora of A’s to Z’s in different order and metaphors and exclamation points! (which I try not to use anyway…. ) was waiting for me on my couch. Reading is as important as writing. Because of how many books I read and how many I’ve written, I don’t feel bad helping someone else along.
