On the origins of fiction: Opening paragraph of Henry James's preface to the New York Edition of his novel The Princess Casamassima. It provides an exciting (to me) insight into the workings af a fiction-writer's mental processes.

The simplest account of the origin of The Princess Casamassima is, I think, that this fiction proceeded quite directly, during the first year of a long residence in London, from the habit and the interest of walking the streets. I walked a great deal—for exercise, for amusement, for acquisition, and above all I always walked home at the evening's end, when the evening had been spent elsewhere, as happened more often than not; and as to do this was to receive many impressions, so the impressions worked and sought an issue, so the book after a time was born. It is a fact that, as I look back, the attentive exploration of London, the assault directly made by the great city upon an imagination quick to react, fully explains a large part of it. There is a minor element that refers itself to another source, of which I shall presently speak; but the prime idea was unmistakably the ripe round fruit of perambulation. One walked of course with one's eyes greatly open, and I hasten to declare that such a practice, carried on for a long time and over a considerable space, positively provokes, all round, a mystic solicitation, the urgent appeal, on the part of everything, to be interpreted and, so far as may be, reproduced. 'Subjects' and situations, character and history, the tragedy and comedy of life, are things of which the common air, in such conditions, seems pungently to taste; and to a mind curious, before the human scene, of meanings and revelations the great grey Babylon easily becomes, on its face, a garden bristling with an immense illustrative flora. Possible stories, presentable figures, rise from the thick jungle as the observer moves, fluttering up like startled game, and before he knows it indeed he has fairly to guard himself against the brush of importunate wings. He goes on as with his head in a cloud of humming presences—especially during the younger, the initiatory time, the fresh, the sharply-apprehensive months or years, more or less numerous. We use our material up, we use up even the thick tribute of the London streets—if perception and attention but sufficiently light our steps. But I think of them as lasting, for myself, quite sufficiently long; I think of them as even still—dreadfully changed for the worse in respect to any romantic idea as I find them—breaking out on occasion into eloquence, throwing out deep notes from their vast vague murmur....

You'll find the entire preface at http://www.henryjames.org.uk/pcasa/intro_inframe.htm , but you must click on the "author's preface" link in the list in the left-hand frame. Unfortunately it lacks a URL of its own.

Thanks and a tip of the Hatlo Hat to my lit.-buddy Mark M. Photo of the young James [who knew?] from http://humwww.ucsc.edu/dickens/OMF/james.html.
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2nd Annual Palm Beach Poetry Festival, January 19-22, 2006. At Old School Square, Delray Beach, Florida, Six Advanced Workshops: Tony Hoagland, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds. Deadline to apply Oct. 15, 2005 (hurry!). http://www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.com
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Has this been all over the media and I just missed it? One year ago when Florida was bracing for Hurricane Frances, in advance of the storm, thousands of trucks were waiting with water, ice, medicine, supplies; 4000 National Guardsmen and 4000 emergency aid workers from around the country were in place, 5 million meals were prepared, scores of satellite-communications stations were poised to move in so workers could communicate, and it was all managed by a federal-and-state task force that also coordinated efforts of the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other groups. THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DID THIS, "ensuring the success of the 'largest response to a natural disaster we've ever had in this country.' The president himself passed out water bottles to Floridians..." It was two months before the presidential election, and Florida's 27 electoral votes were at stake. Read the Comment, "Things Left Undone," by Richard A. Clarke, in the November 2005 issue of The Atlantic magazine. If you can't get there from here, then buy a copy or check it out at your local library (or email me and I'll send it over).
9:22:06 AM    comment []  trackback []