on the matter of influence as i get older it becomes more difficult to say what precisely i'm influenced by. i still can pinpoint my obsessions however as my love of language is wide my memory is presently narrowing. not necessarily a bad thing i suppose. but it means that if i have a clump of words or a line buzzing thru my head i must stop what i'm doing and write them down or otherwise i'll lose them forever.

e.g. last week after doing some surfing, some reading and some writing i went to bed around 1:30 a.m. i was pleasantly exhausted and as i did the routine things around the house i had this sentence humming literally as it looped within the grey matter. i thought it was catchy like a hook in a song so as i crawled into bed i thought i'll write it down before i left for work the next morning. of course i got up because i knew that soon as i fell asleep that hook would dissipate and blow away. i opened my eyes, pulled back the covers and fished out my moleskin which i carry in my backpack, took it to the next room and wrote the sentence down. there was no other way to preserve them. that is a sign of obsession i think. kind of ocd i suppose but i had no other choice. the words demanded it and as a writer i had to obey.