A Nobel-Winning Writer Gave Me Another Reason To Write Daily

Gabriel García Márquez shocked me in the prologue of Strange Pilgrims. I’m binge-reading some of his most popular books. Love in Times of Cholera was the last one. I’m not ready yet for One Hundred Years of Solitude. But in the meantime, I picked up Strange Pilgrims, a collection of short stories that take place outside his hometown. Here’s an excerpt of the prologue: “When I started Chronicles of a Deaht Foretold, in 1979, I confirmed the fact that in the pauses between books I tended to lose the habit of writing, and it was becoming more and more difficult for me to begin again. That is why, between October 1980 and March 1984, I set myself the task of writing a weekly opinion column for newspapers in various countries, as a kind of discipline for keeping my arm in shape.” In the Spanish edition, the last line reads more like “for keeping my arm warm.” Maybe a reference to baseball or other sports. Wow! A Nobel-winning writer lost his touches if he stopped writing. He practiced with…

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