To render strings of scenes from your head
into words on paper
that another person could read in order
to recreate the voice of someone unmet,
and at the same time be presented beautifully and clearly;
to choose the right words making the right phrases
making the right sentences making the right paragraphs
making the right chapters, and to have these chapters
interweave into a cohesive story that manages to
fulfil the reader and make him feel
joy, sorrow, despair, or hope;
is insanely meticulous,
and inanely ridiculous.

And to come up with characters
that need to feel alive:
to have to be so many people at once,
each with their own dreams, wants,
thoughts, feelings, identities,
and treasured memories,
how can one not explode?
How can a mind not erode?

And of all the hobbies, passions or pastimes
a human being can engage in—
from juggling chainsaws on a tightrope
to playing the piano while  painting yourself playing the piano
to sculpting a hypercubic klein bottle,
nothing is as delicately difficult
as juggling a thousand possibilities of plot
on a swinging tightrope of self-doubt
while playing the instrument of your vocabulary
to paint a scene revealing itself magically
all the while sculpting an entire universe(!)
piece by piece from the flesh and bone of your own
pregnant imagination.

Who, then, but only the most idiotic,
brave, ambitious, and diabolic self-haters and self-lovers
would write a book?
It's a noble task, to be sure,
for without its fair dose of literature,
mankind would crumble and un-create
back to the unthinking, unfeeling dirt from which it is made.