The Happenstance of Writers

In **Ars Longa, Vita Brevis**, Lewis Laphalm declares:

> Writers happen by accident, not by design.

Laphalm seems to forget the possibility of designing accidents.

Bukowski seems like a good instance of an accident by design.

See for instance **So You Want to Be a Writer?**:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16549

Bruce Lee On Method

Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.

Less than a Quantum

Quantum Books describes its name thus:

Quantum, the unit of energy. A Quantum book is a short study distinctive for the author's ability to offer a richness of detail and insight within about a hundred pages. Short enough to be read in an evening and significant enough to be a book.

Let's seek less than a quantum, then.

Inspiration: This is not a Pipe.

Alan Perlis on Editing

> Editing is a rewording activity.

Source: http://www.cs.yale.edu/quotes.html

Sounding Like This

This very blog is an experiment. The object is to write about method without being obvious. I would like to express myself somehow like this :

Narrow-Minded

My knowledge is limited, my mind puny. I tried hard, I studied, I read many books. And nothing. In my home books spill from the shelves, they lie in piles on furniture, on the floor, barring the passage from room to room. I cannot, of course, read them all, yet my wolfish eyes constantly crave new titles. In truth, my feeling of limitation is not permanent. Only from time to time an awareness flares of how narrow our imagination is, as if the bones of our skull were too thick and did not allow the mind to get hold of what should be its domain. I should know everything that's happening at this moment, at every point on the earth. I should be able to penetrate the thoughts of my contemporaries and of people who lived a few generations ago, and two thousand and eight thousand years ago. I should, so what?

[Czeslaw Milosz, **Road-Side Dog**]

Nine sentences into one paragraph. One paragraph around a narrow topic, yet a poem with an impressive depth. Poetry written as prose. A simple idea which resonate with all its seriousness towards infinity.

Maybe I should do a pastiche. Maybe not today. Maybe I already did.