The guy next to me ordered the same beer as me. We’re pals! Whenever there’s a lull in his conversation with his wife, the guy turns to me and offers me one (1) fact about IPAs before figuring out the next thing he’d like to talk to his wife about. We’re on Lap 5 of this so far.
Just finished up a 43-mile week of running as my second week of recovery from my recent 53K race. My legs felt heavy today but my heart felt light. If that’s the trade running can offer today, I’ll take it.
I once worked in an office with terrible morale. To address this problem, Management announced that we were getting a puppy. The puppy was coming at the end of the month. There was a contest to name the puppy. When the puppy arrived, it was a plushie that you had to go into the boss's office to hug
I love this Jonathan Lethem aside on being jealous of other writers’ publicity campaigns: “It was Bowman who joked to me that when he witnessed Donna Tart's rollout in Vanity Fair he thought, ‘Wow, I wish I had a novel out,’ and then, ‘Wait a minute, I do have a novel out!’”
Book #56 of 2024: MARGERY KEMPE by Robert Glück. I loved this bold, bizarre, erotic, holy book so much. “Heaven is the total presence at once of my self and my body. It's my own skin I travel towards—its entire arousal a homecoming, effortless freedom.”
Ah, Independence Day! The sounds of leafblowers at dawn and illegal fireworks at dusk, the smell of democracy dying all day long. Time to put on my flag shirt and fire up the grill!
Spent my entire day at this table, typing in one last round of edits to this novel from the final ("final") read I did at Writer Camp last week. Getting close. I hope!
Book #55 of 2024: WORLD OF WONDERS by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. “It is this way with wonder: it takes a bit of patience, and it takes putting yourself in the right place at the right time. It requires that we be curious enough to forgo our small distractions in order to find the world.”
Happy birthday, Kafka! "Time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers."
One thing that's been true for a long time in my writing, but that seems to be becoming more true: I feel increasingly freed of the "rules" I was taught about point-of-view. It feels revelatory, but it's possible I have simply discovered how to sparingly use the omniscient POV?
I woke from a dream of a good sentence. Instead of writing it down, I fell sleep. I woke again with a clause missing. I still didn’t write it down. When I finally got up, I found I’d forgotten it all. Slumped on the edge of my bed, I cried, “I wrote such a beautiful sentence last night!”
Thanks to Iron and Wine for an amazing Phoenix show, and to Manual Cinema for the stunning shadow puppetry backdropping the band. I was obsessed with the puppeteers' performance, some of which was done using an overhead projector, my new favorite "instrument" I've played live...
I managed to have three sustained, deep conversations in person or on the phone with three of my favorite people before breakfast today. Pretty solid outcome of my early rising summer days.
Today is an errand/chore/social obligation day that will probably not leave much room for writing, but I did open my laptop, find my novel already up, and immediately fixed a typo I'd missed yesterday. It's not a big improvement to the whole but it keeps the writing streak alive!
First visit to the climbing gym! I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time. Bullied a stranger into being my partner, climbed some walls, only fell and maybe screamed a little once.
Looking for something else in my running app, I came across this screen: I apparently ran, walked, and hiked over 4,000 miles in the past year, according to my step count.
Somehow I didn’t realize the Rubik’s Cube was named for a guy! Even though that’s obvious, seeing the name—but I probably never read it as a kid, only heard it. And it’s only 7 years older than me! My dad’s felt ancient and eternal; It sounds like treasure you’d find in D&D…
I had a guy stop me on the street yesterday to compliment my mustache. He had a huge beard but a shaved upper lip. I felt like a puzzle piece he was looking for.
I had drinks with an editor in corporate publishing after her first compulsory "Let AI write your emails!" training. She was like, "Can't I just … write emails?"
Nine months later, I asked if her team ever used AI, and she said no one's found any use for it at all, but the trainings will not stop.
Thanks to David Hicks for inviting me to read as part of this year’s LitFest at Wilkes University! There’s such a good community of writers here, and I was so glad to visit it for the evening. (Also: my first public reading since I started wearing glasses!)
Was just asked in an interview what one piece of advice I have for new writers.
Enjoy the act of writing.
If you can enjoy the process--the one thing you can control--then you'll be more resilient in the face of the things you can't control. And in this business, you can't control most of it.
I’m sitting at a U-shaped bar rail with about forty seats, writing. I’m the only customer. Then a guy in business clothes comes in, sits right next to me, and immediately starts watching an action movie on his phone at maximum volume, without headphones. WTF?
