Anne Boyer on Not Writing

[Writers: to fall in love, please read immediately] 

Thanks to Book Forum for posting and to Philip Graham for sharing  Anne Boyer's poetic list-style essay on the seldom-discussed topic of not writing:

It is easy to imagine not writing, both accidentally and intentionally. It is easy because there have been years and months and days I have thought the way to live was not writing have known what writing consisted of and have thought “I do not want to do that“ and “writing steals from my loved ones” and “writing steals from my life and gives me nothing but pain and worry and what I can’t have” or “writing steals from my already empty bank account” or “writing gives me ideas I do not need or want” or “writing is the manufacture of impossible desire” or writing is like literature is like the world of monsters is the production of culture is I hate culture is the world of wealthy women and of men.

—Excerpted from Garments Against Women (Ahsahta Press, 2015): "Not Writing" and "What is 'Not Writing'?"