Listening to Annie Dillard

Written after reading a passage from Annie Dillard's On the Writing Life to a creative nonfiction writing class.

When I write, I often do stick to the path, careful not to step on the cracks, to break my mother's back--carefully excavating, mindful not to nick the sidewalls or hit the unstable pocket that will cause the cave-in, the moral collapse of what I know to be true.

Isn't it better to wear my headlamp and carry a backpack full of emergency measures for stopping the holes than to worry, than to turn down--fall down--the shaft with no light?

Light keeps me steady when I follow the direct, marked path. Darkness plunges me into uncertainty--do I turn left or right?--and my words become clumsy in their blindness.

If I stay centered in the floodlights, I can brick my path with molded words, all pointing dutifully to my predetermined discovery. My writer's soul is safe, moving in that predictable pattern, and I will have written well enough.