How MacIver Writes

“Steal a march on the random images that invade you, by choosing and filling the mind with the pictures you will attend to; drive them together with strong connections into a story you can’t take your mind off. Teller of tales, do not wait to be possessed; start building a seamless construction, impregnable to daydreams. When you go to bed, of course, you’ll have to take whatever dreams are sent, and maybe some will be of use.”

I just finished Rules for Old Men Waiting, by Peter Pouncey. It’s about an old man, MacIver, who realizes that now that his beloved wife is gone, he will be too. And soon. So he decides that before he dies, he will write one, whole story.

That’s a good goal to have, I think, as you face your death. He had no one to say goodbye to. So he wrote.

It was a good story he wrote. And in a way it saved him.

And this advice to himself, excerpted above, well, that’s good advice for all of us. One more vote for the discipline of writing. Give your mind the structure. Create a rhythm for the creativity and entice it out of its coy little shell.

Thanks, Mr. Pouncey. Writing just might save us.

Or drive us mad.