| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson by Mark Twain: comes later; in the beginning he is only proposing to tell a
little tale, a very little tale, a six-page tale. But as it is a
tale which he is not acquainted with, and can only find out what
it is by listening as it goes along telling itself, it is more
than apt to go on and on and on till it spreads itself into a book.
I know about this, because it has happened to me so many times.
And I have noticed another thing: that as the short tale
grows into the long tale, the original intention (or motif)
is apt to get abolished and find itself superseded by a quite
different one. It was so in the case of a magazine sketch which
I once started to write--a funny and fantastic sketch about a
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from A Tramp Abroad by Mark Twain: as it was, however, a jerk from Peter settled the matter
very soon, and I was on my legs all right in an instant.
The rope is an immense help in places of this kind."
Now they arrived at the base of a great knob or dome
veneered with ice and powdered with snow--the utmost,
summit, the last bit of solidity between them and the hollow
vault of heaven. They set to work with their hatchets,
and were soon creeping, insectlike, up its surface, with their
heels projecting over the thinnest kind of nothingness,
thickened up a little with a few wandering shreds and
films of cloud moving in a lazy procession far below.
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Richard III by William Shakespeare: BUCKINGHAM. And, in good time, here comes the sweating
Lord.
PRINCE. Welcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?
HASTINGS. On what occasion, God He knows, not I,
The Queen your mother and your brother York
Have taken sanctuary. The tender Prince
Would fain have come with me to meet your Grace,
But by his mother was perforce withheld.
BUCKINGHAM. Fie, what an indirect and peevish course
Is this of hers? Lord Cardinal, will your Grace
Persuade the Queen to send the Duke of York
Richard III |
