Ernest Hemingway is one hundred percent full of shit.
I know almost nothing about Ernest Hemingway. What I do know about him I learned from a laminated poster that my middle school english teacher hung up with thumb tacks next to the white board. A glossy vignette of his face was supported by the quote "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."
Bleeding is really easy. I bleed pretty much every day, for various reasons. Writing, on the other hand, is really hard. About a year ago I started keeping a running list of all the things I wanted to write about on my iPhone, hoping that eventually I’d start bleeding out a novel. The highlights of that list are below:
“An open letter to my lamp.”
“Tomorrow I am going to learn how to dust so my fan isn’t so grey”
“The real reason I am out of cell phone data”
“Where do all the songs I skip on shuffle actually go??”
“An open letter to my night cream”
“Things I drank at my best friend’s wedding, ranked.”
“Times i’ve woken myself up because I’m talking in my sleep”
“A stupid fucking dream journal”
“Who Wore It Best but neither of the people are celebrities, they’re just people I see on the train”
“An open letter to the left side of the bed”
“What does your favorite girl scout cookie say about you”
“What if I’m walking through ghosts all the time and I don’t even know?”
“The New York Times Refrigerator account but for my own fridge”
“An open letter to open letter-writers”
“What if the entire city of New York was actually just inside of a Duane Reade”
“A tether-like cord that keeps you attached to a Chick Fil A at all times”
“Things I’ve invented that already exist”
“A detailed list of all the shit in the bottom of my purse”
“A bunch of haikus about how much I love grilled cheese”
“A really long list of excuses for skipping a co-worker’s birthday party”
“What if gchat is a sentient being and it thinks you’re a shitty friend?”
“All the times Rory Gilmore did a really bad job of pretending there was actually any liquid in her cup”
“Sasha and Malia caption contests”
“An open letter to all the alcohol I drank at my company Halloween party”
“A fanfic about Gil from Gilmore Girls getting a haircut and losing all his rock-and-roll power like Samson”
If you bleed enough you just die.
