The Mark of a Writer’s Nose

We begin this week with a series from our Writing Mamas members “in the field.” About a half dozen Writing Mamas are ensconced at the Community of Writers in Squaw Valley for the week. Squaw is a highly rated invite-only retreat. Our members have offered us a peek behind-the-scenes of an exclusive writer’s workshop.

Our first journal entry comes from member, Janine Kovac.

This week I am at Squaw, and I can’t help noticing how every writer here has a lot of cartilage between his nostril and the tip of his (or her) nose. I keep looking at the undersides of people’s noses and thinking, how large this nasal piece of real estate is. I mean, there’s so much skin, you gotta remember to put sunscreen there. It’s kind of wondrous, that cartilage. I find myself staring at undersides of these noses the way you would stare at someone’s large mole. I would think that these writers would spend a good portion of their day not picking their noses, but stroking the skin. How do you blow a nose like that?

I have to say, I feel a little out of place with my short nose.

This afternoon, I looked at myself in the mirror and tipped my chin up ever so slightly to see for the first time, that I, too, have quite a lot of cartilage between the end of my nostril and the end of my nose.

I had just never bothered to look.