One True Thing

“All you have to do is write one true sentence.” Ernest Hemingway’s advice to writers is legendary.  One true sentence, that’s all it takes to get going again.  “Write the truest sentence you know.”

I’ve been stuck for weeks in my writing.  I feel like I’m living in a massive dining room full of small plate cuisine.  Tidy, arranged radish florets and snippets of shrimp on a yellow plate.  Not abundant or rich.  Not overflowing or important. Small, tiny saucers of stuff.  Not interesting.

So to see if Hemingway was right, I endeavor to write one true sentence.

This is harder than it sounds.

OK.

I wish it would snow.

My kids have their own lives.

I haven’t told all the truth yet.

My father had his shirt on inside out the last time anyone saw him alive.

When I am swimming, I feel like I am 19.

A beautiful car is a rare and wonderful thing.

I have to face the next part of my life.

I’m not sorry but I would like to explain.

My mother’s purple velvet wedding dress is hanging in a black garbage bag in my closet and I’m afraid to look at it.

I didn’t always do the best I could. I just said I did.

So keeping in mind that this isn’t literature, it’s a blog, there are ten true things.  Whether that will get me past my writer’s block, no, my writer’s envy at all the amazing writers there are in the world, I really don’t know.

I just motor along.

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See it here:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ernest-m-hemingway

Photo by Ilya Ilyukhin on Unsplash