Writing as Hemingway is becoming more of a self-study. Recently at the Michigan Hemingway Society’s annual conference at the Perry Hotel, I was lucky to be invited and warmly received into the arms of some great literary historians and Hemingway scholars. Within the three days of intensive discussions, tours, speakers, and documentaries, I became more engrossed in the personality of the famed writer and his tour through the writing world. Often quoted and often misunderstood, there is a person behind the Hemingway mystique, and the more I write the more it becomes clear how closely I follow his lead. Now mind you, I do not pretend to be a scholar, but as a fan, the more I explore his ways and other writers behind their writing the more normal I feel – if those personalities can be called “normal.” The constant strive for perfection, the elaborate work of editing, and the persistent worry of a general public wanting to read your work places into context the struggle of putting words into the world’s eyes. Does one write for the market or does the market adjust to what one writes? Obviously both come into play, but it’s more difficult being discovered – you would think – until you see, feel, and find out what authors go through even after the big public love affair begins – then ends. With Hemingway, his lifestyle was his story. Those adventures were his life. I agree with writing what you know, and I agree with writing full-time all of the time, but what a toll that can have on the personal side of life. With me, I become so immersed into characters that I often have to touch something or someone nearby to prove my present life exists. I become preoccupied with a reality that only exists on paper and in between paragraphs and chapters. Thus, the most like Hemingway that I may be is in his longing for time in Nature. After the conference I visited the Nick Adams Nature Preserve within the Little Traverse Conservancy in Northern Michigan. While standing at the bank of Horton Creek, I could feel his presence among the serenity and absolute peacefulness that wrapped the area as if in a cloud floating above the earth. I, myself, found peace in a mind ablaze with the previous weeks written pages, speaking events, and newspaper clippings. Once refreshed, I walked away and that night I slept nine hours. A peaceful nine hours. I have been most fortunate to find solace in places like Horton Creek all over North America, but no matter the setting, one must take advantage of what is before you. The symmetry, the rhythm, and the spontaneity of Nature once connected to the brain opens the door of escape. It allows a re-fresh button made up of the brain’s own chemicals to expel the stale and allow the new an entry for the next line; a conjunction of the old and new that begins to make sense. Writing as Hemingway in the present is becoming a grand experiment, but realizing I’m doing it is becoming the best time of my life.