You Must Revise Your Life

"My life in writing, or my life as a writer, comes to me as two parts, like two rivers that blend. One part is easy to tell: the times,the places, events, people. The other part is mysterious; it is my thoughts, the flow of my inner life, the reveries and impulses that never get known--perhaps even to me. This second part wanders along at its own pace, caught up in a story that touches the outward story but is not the same. Often this inner story hardly belongs to the place where I'm living. Whatever the calendar says, whatever outsiders demand, this other part of my life doubles back and becomes involved in its own chosen events." -- William Stafford, You Must Revise Your Life