Welcome to my cyber corner
One of my favorite childhood memories is the dusty smell of books in the public library in my hometown. A hunched-over old man sat behind the counter, white hairs growing from his nose and ears. When he stood up, his knees trembled so hard that I cringed and waited for them to shatter. I pay homage to that librarian in my novel The Ladder, where I call him Gregor Solomon.
When questioned about the existence of God, Socrates said "I know that I don't know."
I feel the same way. I smile and nod at anyone who's convinced otherwise, and then quote Theodore Kolinovich, my protagonist in the novella Impulse, "Whatever gets you through the night, "salright."
Theodore is plagiarizing John Lennon, but Theodore is a paranoid schizophrenic living in an asylum, so let's give him a break.
Writing a story is like walking into a brightly-lit room with thick wall-to-wall maroon carpet and heavy black curtains. Fingers leisurely entwined behind your back, you're strolling around the room when you see a piece of string sticking out from under the curtain. The whiteness of the string on the maroon rug bothers you, so you bend down to pick it up and discover that a long string is hiding behind the curtain. Your curiosity mounts. The string keeps gettin' longer and ends up as a ball of yarn cradled in your palm.
The writer's job is to pull on the string - a pleasantly laborious and sometimes exhausting task that requires daily care and considerable self-discipline, for, if the writer falters, the universe will never know. I'm not sure if the universe gives a hoot.
Thanks to Chekhov and Melville, to Marquez and Updike, and many others who decided to write anyway.
I invite you to explore my stories. Go ahead, print one out. Fluff up the pillows and lie on your bed. Read a few pages. If you like the story, read a few more pages, and so on, and so on....
be well,
Ilan
