A favorite bit of writing

My auntie recently wrote me that she doesn't like descriptive writing-- "scudding clouds" and the like.
I usually don't either.
But the opening lines of Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain" (1997) are a fine piece of writing--the wind hitting the trailer has stayed in my mind since I read it years ago.
(I've never seen the movie.)

"Ennis Del Mar wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames. The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft. He gets up, scratching the grey wedge of belly and pubic hair, shuffles to the gas burner, pours leftover coffee in a chipped enamel pan; the flame swathes it in blue. He turns on the tap and urinates in the sink, pulls on his shirt and jeans, his worn boots, stamping the heels against the floor to get them full on. The wind booms down the curved length of the trailer and under its roaring passage he can hear the scratching of fine gravel and sand."

Good writing is writing that serves the story. 
Copying the passage out just now, I appreciate it all over again. It's half the story, right there. We are buffeted by forces outside our control.

I wonder how much Proulx futzed with these lines.
I would guess a lot.

____________

P.S. I looked around and yep, probably a lot.

"For Proulx writing is all about 'the making of the object. I look on it as a craftsman would making a table.'"

--Interview in the Guardian

Annie Proulx’s 5 Rules For Good Writing [via]

1. Proceed slowly and take care

2. To ensure that you proceed slowly, write by hand. 

3. Write slowly and by hand only about subjects that interest you. 

4. Develop craftsmanship through years of wide reading. 

5. Rewrite and edit until you achieve the most felicitous phrase / sentence / paragraph / page / story / chapter.