Sometimes, while researching the number 20,000 or Beatles songs co-written by McCartney and Lennon, or contemporary art fairs, as one does for, you know, work, one comes across some rare gem that requires pencils to be put down, pauses to be taken, thoughts to be stilled.
Today it was this short quote from a doomed man, a wash-up, a broken, beaten, down-hearted traveller at the end of an epic journey whose finish had not been heralded by fanfare, nor accolades. He'd tried to write the tale of his adventure many times over, but failed, saying:
"I wrote it sweet enough but it came up sour."
Perhaps these words struck me purely because this week I came up against so many creative dead ends, points at which I knew my heart wasn't sweet or buoyant or optimistic enough to give the delightful edge required to the copy I was writing. It's not the first time. Like George Beck, I've tried over and over to write a story as beautiful as the things I've seen, and though I have the words and the images, it keeps coming up sour.
Some authors say they write in order to know what they think, but sometimes it seems more sensible to keep those secret thoughts hidden. Sometimes it's better to think what we wish to, rather than to know, for certain, what the insides of our minds are like.
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