For love or money
A friend sent me a tweet recently that said … Bad writing day? Probably not this bad: http://www.salon.com/2012/06/27/my_book_was_a_bad_idea/ This article in Salon tells the story of someone who quit her job to write a book that didn’t sell – a book she came to believe was a bad idea, written for the wrong reasons and in the wrong spirit. It is a raw and honest piece. One part, in particular, jumped out at me. Here, she is writing about the process of writing her book: “…for most of that time I was not working because I was an artist who must write or die, or because I was a...
Read MoreMore than a brighter shade of happiness
“What have you been thinking about joy recently?” Mike asked me over lunch the other day. “I’ve been thinking about that research suggesting that people are happier before they have children,” I said. “And about how happiness and joy are different.” “Are you going to write the easy post about how you often feel less happy on a moment to moment basis since Dominic’s birth, but you have more joy in your life?” Mike asked. “No,” I said. “Because, although I would like to think that this is true, I’m not actually sure that it is.” Despite the fact that joy is the...
Read MoreFrom love to joy
Last Wednesday I talked about how the arrival of one baby coincided with the death of a dream (at least temporarily) for another. During the first six weeks of Dominic’s life, doors with traditional publishers continued to close one after another. I received a lot of positive feedback from editors about my writing and the book, but no one was willing to take a risk on it in the current publishing climate. It was difficult not to let this disappointment dominate my thinking or taint the joys that other areas of my life were handing me. When it comes to compliments and criticism, most people...
Read MoreThe Most Versatile Word in the English Language
In these bodies we will live In these bodies we will die Where you invest your love, you invest your life (Mumford and Sons) Love: What wells up when Dominic flashes a wide, gummy grin of delight when I bend down and speak to him. Love: How I feel about the chocolate ice cream that AB Bakery has just started making. Yes, folks, we may not have incredibly reliable electricity, but there’s now some good ice cream in town. Love: The fact that Mike, despite feeling completely exhausted, dragged himself out of bed at 5:15 this morning, took our flapping, squawking child and our whimpering dog...
Read MoreThings to love about coming home
We’ve been back 48 hours, and I’m way too tired to write anything deep on the current theme of love, so I thought I’d just offer a look at things I’ve loved about being back so far… The power went out before 9am the first morning we were back, so instead of unpacking and organizing necessities like change tables and diapers we spent three hours mostly trying to stay cool. Well, Mike and I tried to stay cool. Crazy baby didn’t want to lie on the tiles for some reason so he lay on Mike and sweated his way into a bad mood. A really bad mood. Oh, wait. I was supposed to be talking...
Read More
