Barbara O'Neal

Do you ever wish for the kind of writing process your friend has? You know, the one who sails into the mist? Or the one who writes every scene in the book down ahead of time—and then sticks to it? Or the one who writes a solid five pages a day, day in and day out? I do. At times I burn for one or another of those ways of writing. You’d think I’d be at peace with it after all these decades, but I tend to beat myself up over my process.

poetic encounter between a woman and butterflies coming out of a book My current book is misbehaving. In fact, it is driving me so crazy that I am more than happy to have an excuse to write a column here instead of writing on the book. When this happens, when I’m struggling with a book, lost in the spaghetti messiness of it, I fret and worry and storm around the house. I moan to my husband that I’ve really done it this time—the world will see that I do not actually know what I’m doing.

This corner of my living room has become one of my favorites. It had been so dark there at night, and I remembered this little lamp and brought it out of the basement to help illuminate the painting wall. The large artwork is new. I bought it in Marrakech in October, caught immediately because it spoke to the book I had just finished writing—a book full of calligraphy and the secrets of language.