igotopinions:
So there is a word for my crimes…
One of the best words ever. (And so necessary. Why does a word for this not exist in English?)
(via teachingliteracy)
Present to myself arrived in the mail! Pausing EVERYTHING on my to-read list to read this book first.
David Foster Wallace: “THIS IS WATER”
‘Bout time someone made something like this. What a great video. (And, of course, a fantastic speech.)
Every day I force myself out of bed, eyes sleep-crusted and head cloudy, to write myself through the morning haze and into awakeness.
Every evening I go to the Ashtanga studio, temples aching from the computer screen and fluorescent lights, to shake off the tension of the work day and push myself into some sort of clarity.
Writing. Yoga. Both are projects like anything else. My novels. My body. I’m building strength, flexibility, and discipline.
With each passing day I find myself more and more surprised at how much my two practices mirror each other.
“Going through a drawer I found the submissions/applications log I’ve kept off and on over the years. Just in case you think it’s all been roses I’d like to report that Yaddo rejected me (as recently as 2011). McDowell rejected me. Hedgebrook rejected me twice. The Georgia Review rejected me and Ploughshares rejected me and Tin House rejected me, as did about twenty other journals and magazines. Both The Sun and The Missouri Review rejected me before I appeared in their pages. Literary Arts declined to give me a fellowship three times before I won one. I’ve applied for an NEA five times and it’s always been a no. Harper’s magazine never even bothered to reply. I say it all the time but I’ll say it again: keep on writing. Never give up. Rejection is part of a writer’s life. Then, now, always.”
