Things You Save to Write

Three pages into Hemingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” I encounter the gem above. This is just one of the million reasons why Hemingway is Hemingway: he turns the obvious into a new poem. 

As most writers do, I have lists of moments, images, things that I am saving to write because I don’t feel quite ready to do so yet. Of course, this is just a lame way of masking fear of failure. You become ready by writing while unready. Everyone knows that. 

But only Hemingway writes it down in black and white and gold. 

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