» Saturday, 31 March A.D. 2007
the army of e's
Ernest Vincent Wright, on writing Gadsby, A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter E:
As I wrote along, long-hand at first, a whole army of little e's gathered around my desk, all eargerly expecting to be called upon. But gradually as they saw me writing on and on, without even noticing them, they grew uneasy; and , with excited whisperings amongst themselves, began hopping up and riding on my pen, looking down constantly for a chance to drop off into some word; for all the world like seabirds perched, watching of a passing fish! But when they saw that I had covered 138 pages of typewriter size paper, they slid off onto the floor, walking sadly away, arm in arm; but shouting back: `You certainly must have a hodge-podge of a yarn there without Us! Why, man! We are in every story ever written, hundreds of thousands of times! This is the first time we ever were shut out!'
posted by Nate @ 9:19AM