ASK HANNAH
Hannah Graham's Advice to the Wordworn

Dear Hannah,

I have been writing romance for six months, but sometimes I find myself totally blocked. Any suggestions?

Compositionally Constipated in Cleveland

Dear C³

More roughage is in order. Try some crime fiction.

Hg.

Dear Hannah,

One wonders — one has then got to the position in which one cannot think that one cannot think about what one cannot think about because there is a rule against thinking about the X, and a rule against thinking that there is a rule against thinking that one must not think about not thinking about certain things.

R.D. Laing

Dear R

If certain things cannot be thought about: and among the certain things that cannot be thought, is that there are certain things that cannot be thought, including the aforementioned thought, then: he who had complied with this calculus of anti-thoughts will not be aware that he is not aware that he is obeying a rule not to think that he is obeying a rule not to think about X. So he is not aware of X and not aware he is not aware of the rule against being not aware of X. By obeying a rule not to realize he is obeying a rule, he will deny that there is any rule he is obeying. It only goes to say.

Hg.

HG's Word for the day: anastrophe — transposition or inversion of normal word order; a type of hyperbaton.

"Once upon a midnight dreary..." — Edgar Allan Poe.

"The helmsman steered; the ship moved on; yet never a breeze up blew." — Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

© Hannah Graham 2001

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