One of the highpoints of my trip to Atlanta was a visit to the house where Margaret Mitchell wrote “Gone With the Wind”. Now, lest you think she had the run of some big place, not so. She and her husband shared a very small apartment in the basement. (The rest of the house has burned, not once but twice, but the apartment remained intact.) She sat at a tiny table, facing a window, and wrote what many would consider the Great American Novel on an old-fashioned typewriter. Each of the 63 chapters of the novel was tucked into its own manila envelope (writers are strange creatures, as you may have guessed), and Mitchell steadfastly refused to show the pages to anyone. (Her friends finally convinced her to give it to a famous editor visiting Atlanta in search of new writers–she literally ran into the lobby of his hotel, dumped 63 manila envelopes on a table, and ran out again!)
Among my favorite lines from the book is, “You should be kissed, and often, and by somebody who knows how.” Rhett Butler. (Oh, baby.)
Friends, it doesn’t get any more romantic than that.
Favorite Margaret Mitchell quote? “In a weak moment, I have written a book.” I love that so much, I bought a coffee cup inscribed with her picture and those words.
In a weak moment, I, too, am writing a book.
I’d better get back to it.
