Virginia Terris
The Reading
One summer a famous writer is invited to work at an artists’ colony. She takes along her typewriter and tape recorder. As she sits in her studio, which is located in a barn where other artists are working, she has trouble finding something to write about. She looks out of the windows at the tall pines swaying in the wind, their needles glinting in the sunlight, but can’t bring herself to write once more about the beauties of nature. Through another window she sees the mountains but discards the theme of the brevity of human life. Through the skylight she glimpses a stormcloud filled with lightning and contemplates its awesome power but can’t stand being so unoriginal.
She realizes one of her troubles is the thunderous banging down the hall, where plays, poems and novels are tumbling into being out of many many typewriters. She sits for a long while facing her typewriter and tape recorder hoping inspiration will come.
The suimner over, she is asked to present an insiders s view of the creative act to an audience who had listened to many other writers speaking on the same subject. She turns on her tape recorder in the crowded hall. The clacking of many typewriters fills the auditorium. The tape over, she clicks it off. The applause is deafening.
Page(s) 84-85
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