In the Library, With a Pen

Above, the pensive expression of a writer. Image from the US Government free of copyright restrictions.

Feel that way lately? Looks like we all do. The photo was taken just about the time Mr. Hemingway was in contention for the Nobel in literature. 

You've looked just like that this week. Get over it.

So, I'm a four weight man. 

I fished for years with a six weight because that was the rod I owned. It was a broomstick of a beast: an old hand-laid fiberglass model I bought in Gunnison, Colorado in '79.

I have a stable of rods now. 

I fish a Sage RPL two-piece seven weight with an eight weight Wulff line even though I hate two-piece rods and the seven weight is the least practical of the large rods. It isn't really big enough for salmon and it is overkill swinging streamers for trout. Over-lining a rod just to give it feel is just a cheat. If the thing was made correctly, it'd cast its rated line in double-taper without any compromise.

I've a lovely custom 4/5 Steffen that Mark McKellip laid up for me with a wonderful stacked leather handle.

I have a three weight from the Orvis custom shop which has my name on it. 

I have a pile of other rods including one inspired by the vibrational dampening of a Trident submarine. Yep, that's how it was sold: it'll remove any and all feel from the casting action. When did that become a good thing?

Nevertheless, the rod I love is the four weight: any four weight.

I'll go throw some midges on Sunday with a friend. The ice is breaking out of my local river and the stream with trout is already mostly free flowing. In two days, they'll be a midge hatch.

It'll be a reward. I'm running ahead on the WIP now. I always do near the end of the first draft. 

I start slow. I don't often know the characters as well as I like and it takes a bit to put the words and actions into their heads.

Oh, I'm a plotter; but, in the first draft my plot tends more to the premise than a series of emotionally influenced outcomes without resolution. There isn't much in the way of a loose end in my early drafts. I'm just trying to tell the story.

Which is what I think is happening in the picture above. I think Hemingway is trying to tell himself the story.

He's looking at the page thinking "why did I say that?"

I don't know ultimately what type of writer I might be. Could be complete rubbish.

I do know what type of fly fisher I am.

There's that out of the way.

Now, to the pen.