Fred Waitzkin's Blog

Most of us can eventually get used to almost anything -- natural catastrophes, war, even scores of huge aggressive sharks inhabiting a tranquil place such as the Big Game Club Marina on the Bahamian island of Bimini.

Before she arrives at my office on Wednesday evenings, rather than assessing the state of my scoliosis, I think about ideas or stories I want to tell her. We might discuss an essay or scene I am writing or fall into a conversation about love, deceit, or mutability. Increasingly our talks have become probing and intense, a high point of the week for me, and I think for her as well.

My father once said to me, "The best friends you'll ever have are the guys you do business with." After a glance my way he underlined his thinking, "Eventually the rest of them will screw you."



Like many college-aged men I was passionate about friends, particularly male buddies, and my father's inexplicable blasphemy, linking money with friendship, attacked the core of my youthful aesthetics. I tried to argue with him, but that never worked with Abe Waitzkin, who showered scorn at me with his...

The two impulses -- writing and selling -- couldn't be more different, or at least they have been for me.

I was sitting on a crumbling sea wall alongside James Rolle, my best friend on Bimini, staring out at the reef and the blue ocean beyond. There was a cool breeze coming off the Gulf Stream that felt like the essence of renewal. I breathed it in.

It does not matter if a writer's work is delicate or deep or inventive or learned or crass. With thousands of books published each week, authors are begging for a signing in a prestigious store, no less a radio interview or a feature newspaper article.

I hired a talented actress to help me visualize scenes with my central character.

I hired a talented actress to help me visualize scenes with my central character.