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Am transcribing an interview in which the source speaks in long, fluid paragraphs full of snappy turns of phrase and am almost beside myself with happiness.
Was raking leaves over lunch & thinking on this: When I started freelancing, 18 years ago, I always thought I'd reach a day when great stories were handed to me. That day never came. The days now are a trudge of looking, looking for the Next Good Story. But...(THREAD)
Once in a while, every hapless scribbler who sticks at it gets a call. It's a source on the line, a guy you talked to from a story years ago, that story you still think about. He liked the work you did, then. And he wants to tell you a new story. (cont'd)
The story he tells you is fantastic. And you almost want to weep for the gift he has given you, a beggar given cake in his alms bowl. And suddenly you are someone else. It is you, but revived. (cont'd)
Stumbling into a new story is like stumbling into love (or the little I know of love). You cannot think of anything else. You want to spend all your waking hours around the story. You want to stay up late with it, and know everything about it, bore your friends with it. (cont'd)
You are old enough now to know that this infatuation must end. One day you will have to write the thing. And love will curdle to frustration, and then resentment, and you will not want to be anywhere near what once brought such joy. (cont'd)
But that is all later. For now, you feel really young again, the way you felt when you first got into this grim, poorly-paying, dying business, making $24grand and still knew exactly what Mencken meant when he called it "the life of kings."
/ END
/ END
Upon reflection this might have provided a bit too much of a window into the Solomon Philosophy of Love but there you go
