Blasted, writing like a fire ball, crashing with head empty, the power came and went, it never asked you if it should, you had to reach out for it.
It was a difficult mix, getting blasted, measuring out just enough to make it (writing) easy. Henry could write best on reefer, his worse stuff was “Drunk writing”.
The great ones just had it, working hard, born to do it. Henry was the laziest writing under the sun. Sadly it got down to doing it because he had to, an addiction, not a higher calling for him.
Writing alone wasn’t fun, reading your stuff at coffee shops and in bars would be great fun. It was Henry’s dream to tour the USA and read his stuff to small crowds.
At times a feeling would well up inside of him, the feeling like a whore house on Saturday night, it was as though the order that held the world together was eroding. It was a great feeling like a world wide party, like anything was possible. It was a feeling of full blown self love, as though the shadows of past failure and self doubt melted away.
Henry in old age on automatic pilot, no more psychic lessons to learn, soul waiting for what came next. Maybe the ones who died young had to come back and do it again? Henry finished, just waiting.
The internet was the biggest diversion of the century. Think of the work hours lost to social media. Henry would rather dick around on the net than write. It must have been different for your Hemingways, Dos Passos and Henry Millers, they, dedicated to their craft.
Henry would rather be somewhere else than where he was, always itching.