MOST USUALLY, TAGGERT
Most usually I like my first take
the best. As a writer, I mean, you
see. Same as it is when you're driving
somewhere - through the hills or
down the hollers, and you don't
know exactly where you're going,
but you just turn and drive anyway.
And then wherever you end up is
a place you end up liking! Now all
those big-city New Yawk boys -
oh, and I've been there among them
too - they'll tell you it's not that
way, and can never be. You've got
to sweat and slave over every line
and syllable and dot, and do it over
all the time, revising and changing
your mind. Then of course, there's
another school among them, saying,
I don't recall how it went, like 'first
take, best take.' Something like that.
They tried to teach it that the more
you work it, the deader it gets. It was
funny, back there, we used to joke
about sex like that. Just for fun, the
girls even, too. But it was still, as
I saw it, 'teaching,' and that's way
I left. I came back here, long time
ago. Feeling you can't 'teach' writing,
or no 'way' of writing best. You just
live it. You'll find. You either got it
or you don't. All the rest, Taggert, is
just party talk. Just party talk indeed.
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