Getting Real

I dodged a bullet last week, and I’m still taking it easy. But the experience of having a stroke made this bit of advice more than usually pertinent. But it applies to everyone who wants to write, I think.

Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?

ANNIE DILLARD