Abundance > Scarcity

Do you spend it all or save some for tomorrow?                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 June 07, 2023 | [Read Online]( Abundance > Scarcity Do you spend it all or save some for tomorrow? [Cole Schafer]( June 07, 2023 [fb]( [tw]( [in]( [email](mailto:?subject=Post%20from%20The%20Process.&body=Abundance%20%3E%20Scarcity%3A%20Do%20you%20spend%20it%20all%20or%20save%20some%20for%20tomorrow%3F%0A%0Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.getthesticky.com%2Fp%2Fspend-it-all) In [A Moveable Feast](, Ernest Hemingway reflects on the days of his youth living in Paris, working desperately to make it as a writer. While Hemingway is guilty of chest-pumping throughout much of the manuscript––perhaps in hopes to maintain the larger-than-life persona he had built up by the time of the memoir’s creation––there are moments where he lowers his gloves and offers the reader a peek behind the veil. What we see in these glimpses is not a literary giant but rather a deeply insecure writer uncertain of his abilities. There’s a particularly vulnerable passage where Hemingway writes about squeezing the peel of an orange into a fire in his writing room and watching as the flames turn blue, all the while convincing himself not to worry about the block he is experiencing but to instead find it in himself to write just one true sentence. Further in, Hemingway describes a writing process he used to stave off creative block, which involves lifting his fingers from the typewriter and closing up shop for the day when he knows what is going to happen next. In his own words he writes… “ I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing; but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the spring that fed it. ” While I’m sure there are writers who have the discipline to stand up from the page when they still have something left to say, I’m not one of them. When I sit down to write, it’s not unlike wringing out a wet rag. I wring and I squeeze and I wrestle until every word inside of me is out and onto the page and then I throw the rag over my shoulder and get back to my life. I realized I wasn’t alone in this sentiment after I picked up Annie Dillard’s Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of sorts, [The Writing Life](. Contrary to Hemingway, Dilliard urges the writer to “spend it all”… “ One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the signal to spend it now. Something more will arise for later, something better. These things fill from behind, from beneath, like well water. ” I found it beautifully ironic that while Hemingway and Dillard found themselves on opposing sides of the same argument, they both reached for the metaphor of the well. While neither is necessarily wrong, I’m with Dillard all the way. Leave it all on the page. Every single day, leave it all on the page. Because tomorrow, you might get hit by a bus. By [Cole Schafer](. P.S. If this newsletter left you inspired, do me a huge favor and tell one person to [subscribe](. Impo [tw]( [ig]( [in]( Update your email preferences or unsubscribe [here]( © The Process 228 Park Ave S, #29976, New York, New York 10003, United States [[beehiiv logo]Powered by beehiiv](