Have you always wanted to be a writer? Have you stopped dreaming and started writing? This charming poem by Stephen Dobyns appeared in the April 9, 2012 issue of The New Yorker. It is about the dream of being a writer and having the determination to start writing.
Determination
~by Stephen Dobyns
Cabbage—the first word put down
with his new pen, a trophy pen,
like a trophy wife, not cheap,
absurd to use a ballpoint pen
for a task like this, a challenge,
for which he’d also bought a new,
but ancient, rolltop desk recently
restored, with matching chair,
also not cheap, and for which he’d
renovated the attic room with
pine-panelled walls, bookshelves,
and good light for his new office
or weekend office, a place planned
for many years, even before college,
back in high school in fact, a resolve
rare in his life, but about which
he’d dreamed in free moments
at his office, and which kept him
sane during those tedious years
of doing the taxes of strangers,
but now at last begun, excitingly
begun, as he leaned forward with
pen raised to put down on paper
the first word of his first novel.
I always wanted to be someone who had already written the book! 😎
It isn’t too late to start!
That’s why I’m doing this blog — using this material to put a book together, without having to commit to 300 pages, or whatever! Thanks for you encouragement!
Thanks for sharing, Robin. And like everyone else. I WANT that desk!
Let’s pool our money together and buy it. Then we can take turns using it!
Beautiful desk and beautiful poem.
I wish I could say thanks but I didn’t take the picture and I didn’t write the poem! Darn it, I wish I had!
Love the post and the accompanying photograph! 🙂
Glad you liked it!
Angela’s baby steps anaology is how it was for me. Previously I’d faltered because (maybe being a Sagi) I’d aimed higher than I handle but blogging found me and I found my voice and it’s just as natural as walking for me now, and like my morning walks I miss blogging if other life gets in the way.
How lovely to have found a niche for your writer’s voice.
I L0O-V-E the photo. A place of one’s own. Ah. To dream and create. It’s too delicious!
I WANT that desk!
That moment, when you first put pen to paper, is so amazingly powerful. this captures it so well.
Doesn’t it? I want to read what he wrote after “cabbage.”
For me, the writing came before the dream. Backwards, I know. But still satisfying. 🙂
Doesn’t matter the order – as long as it happened!
Last year, I stopped dreaming and started. One foot forward, baby steps, snapshots and small tasks will get me to the finish line. Love the photo, by the way! 😉
Angela! You are back! How nice to “hear” your voice.
I want to sit at the desk in the photo and be inspired to write something as witty as Mark Twain.