The first line of Lorrie Moore’s essay, How to Become a Writer, reads:

First, try to be something else, anything, else.

The essay goes on smoothly and brilliantly from here, and traces a writer’s progress from an early age to maturity, but the first line hangs with me. I spend all week looking at other people. The cupcake shop owner. The college counselor. The lawyer, the doctor, the captain of industry. I see artists. And bookshop sellers. The merchant. The secretary. The postal clerk.   And all these occupations look great, and I imagine what it would be like to be in the shoes of the participants.

And then I sit down and write about it.

Photo Credit: Chris Greene, sxc