Well, I'm trying, but being *asked* to, makes me realize it's still hard.

I hope you do do the meme. I really want to see what you come up with as first or spontaneous choices, both as reader and as writer.

I know instantly what I come up with as reader. But I'm having a problem as a writer. I like a lot of my stuff--I just don't have one bit that I love.

Still looking.

I think I fear I'll be overcome with self-love, um, apart from the kind that makes you go blind if you do it too much, and my whole world-view will be upended.

It's not so much about posting a piece that you love of your own - it's more about posting a piece that you think is immediately recognisable as you.

Bev, I picked something so strange -- it's so hard to pick one small thing. I like a lot of my stuff, too, but as soon as I picked one, I wished I had picked something else.

I've had a hard time determining a favorite. There are articles I've written that I think were pretty good, but it's hard to find a paragraph or so.

The bit I posted, as a writer (as a reader, I posted Shirley Jackson's prologue to Hill House), isn't remotely my favourite. But as something that worked to encapsulate what I think of as my voice, it worked.

BTW, this isn't a friendslocked meme; anyone can come play. I'm debg at livejournal. Writers, all welcome. And it doesn't have to be fiction - if it's fic, or poetry, or drama, or anything else that you feel catches your voice, go for it.

Deb, where's your tag from? It's on the tip of my tongue -- I *know* I know it, but I can't place it.

I did a stupid thing -- when we changed computers, I apparently didn't get everything off the old one. I was actually looking for part of a personal essay I wrote years ago, and it's gone, baby. Not on a disk, and I can't find a hard copy. Which is of the suck, let me tell you. I know there's other stuff I'm going to look for one day, and it will have suffered the same fate.

The tag is a Robert Hunter lyric, from "Eyes of the World":

Right outside this lazy summer home
You ain't got time to call your soul a critic, no
Right outside the lazy gate
Of winter's summer home
Wondering where the nuthatch winter's wings a mile long
Just carried the bird away

Chorus

Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world
But the heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own
Wake now discover that you are the song that the morning brings
But the heart has its seasons, its evenings and songs of its own

There comes a redeemer and he slowly, too, fades away
And there follows his wagon behind him that's loaded with clay
And the seeds that were silent all burst into bloom and decay
And night comes so quiet, it's close on the heels of the day

[chorus]

Sometimes we live no particular way but our own
And sometimes we visit your country and live in your home
Sometimes we ride on your horses, sometimes we walk alone
Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs of our own