Tuesday, September 9
essay
I spent the balance of last night reading the essays of George Orwell, collected in a thick volume with thin red covers, smallish print, and a yellow ribbon bookmark. I would probably have noticed daylight starting out the window by the time I put it down, if it hadn't already been raining by then.
Orwell is not someone I would want to wind up sounding like, so it is well that any of his style I seem to be copying will wear off once I stop actively reading him. Nonetheless, Orwellesque strings and chains of sentences keep rolling off my brain. They are not especially good, and most of them do not actually have any content, but I guess they'll keep coming for a week or two.
I do not actually want to talk about George Orwell, for all that Eric Arthur Blair was a pretty fascinating individual and reading some of this stuff is several kinds of good. I would rather talk about the essay as a kind of writing, which is something I do not know enough to do in depth. Instead, for the moment, I am going to start a list of things I think are good or interesting essays. I guess it's probably more useful to read and write them than to talk about doing so, anyway.
morning
It is almost 2:00 AM,
and I am still here, typing.
Today was important
and I will remember parts of it
probably as long as I live.
I am not sure that there is
anything to write about this,
and I have no singular revelations
or epiphanies to impart.
This is acceptable, but
it doesn't make for very good copy.