Fountain of Inspiration

Because Ben Fountain says, “By now I’d learned that to return to a remembered place is to risk ruining the thing archived in your mind.”

Because he says, “So the method, basically, is I research myself into a corner, then try to work my way out of it with the help of the story that got me going in the first place.”

Because he says, “Sometimes a thing chooses you—rather than you choosing it…”

Because, because, because there are so many out there who don’t give up and keep praying with their hands splayed at the keyboard, I, too, will keep going.

As always, it must start with heavy reading. The kind of reading that makes you forget where you are. Tonight, plowing through Fountain’s Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, which I started some months ago and am now eager to eat up.