Near the Finish Line

“A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end... but not necessarily in that order.” –  Jean Luc Godard

I finished my manuscript—sort of. I am writing the glossary and doing a final rewrite, but for all intents and purposes, the book is done. I chose this week’s quote because it is missing one component; a story also needs a title. This week I committed myself to a title: Free of Hepatitis C (A Guide for Your Journey from Diagnosis to Treatment). I know that only 4% of titles that the author comes up with are the ones that end up on the book, but I wanted the manuscript to have a name on it. So now, I have a beginning, middle, end, and title. Add in a glossary, and I am done.

The Passing of Life and Time

“Life is short and often stingy; feast the heart with what it craves, short of cruelty, and let the world wonder.” – Reynolds Price

The dear writer, Reynolds Price, died this week. His passing spurs me to write, to feast on words, and to fall headlong into a love affair with life itself. Life is short, but the length of the day is always twenty-four hours. Each day, the question for me is simply, what am I going to do with my precious twenty-four hours?

One Page Per Day

"Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart."  ~William Wordsworth

There is a website that I am not recommending, called One Page a Day. It’s a nifty, simple idea, and I don’t mean to be critical of the site or its creator. The site provides a blank page for writers to write one page every day, “free of the tyranny of the infinite page.”

I have three points to make about this:

1. I don’t know about you, but I have never felt oppressed by more than one piece of paper or an unending page.
2. If there are those who feel tyrannized by the infinite page, then have you ever thought of just writing on a single page of Word or notepaper?
3. Isn’t this just one more electronic distraction?

For those of you who can’t resist checking out the site, here is the link: One.Page.Per.Day

Charming Notes

“I guess this book is the 18-hour version of how to make a literary life. The 18-minute version, simplicity itself, is in this paragraph: a thousand words a day (or two hours of revision) five days a week, for the rest of your life, and—and!—one charming note (or a phone call that makes your hands sweat), five days a week, for the rest of your life.” – Carolyn See, Making a Literary Life

Carolyn See’s advice is simple; write a charming note to a novelist, editor, journalist, poet, sculptor, etc. every single day. In her book, Making a Literary Life, she devotes an entire chapter to this notion, even suggesting the size of the stationery.

I don’t do this every day. In fact, I do this about twice a year. I wrote to Barbara Kingsolver one year and got a reply back. It was thrilling. Even more thrilling is when I get a note or an email from a reader. A note is more exciting because it entails effort, but even a remark from one of my blog followers is worth more than a gold, frankincense or myrrh (although I am not sure how much myrrh is worth).

Happy New Year

“Loafing is the most productive part of a writer's life.” - James Norman Hall

Usually I begin the year with a fresh journal, but in 2010 I was too involved with other aspects of life to keep much of a daily log.

In keeping with the notion of a fresh start, I cleaned up my email. I have been torturing myself with emails, telling myself that I will get to them later, then rereading and reshelving them umpteen times.  I have a second email address that is just for newsletters, information, and retail-related emails - anything that isn’t personal or business goes to the other email account. I haven’t even checked it in over a month, and it had accumulated hundreds of unnecessary pieces of info directed to me.

Today, I unsubscribed myself from nearly everything. No more emails from political or social agencies; no more Kodak, Snapfish, or Shutterfly. The vegan newsletter is gone, so is the Word of the Day. Bye to Angie’s List, Borders, Abes and Barnes and Nobles. Sorry to an end to slavery, hunger, and death penalty abolition – I still care about you, but I don’t want to hear from you. Ta Ta to vitamin sellers, nursing magazines, herb newsletters, and shoes. On and on, it went, until I was unsubscribed from everything I received and had not read in the past two months.

Then, I went to my regular email box and using suggestions I had read in a great blog, Zen Habits, I purged until I reached cyber-peace. It’s like starting with a blank slate.

May 2011 be a writerly one, and please don't send me an email for at least a day. Just once I want to stare at an empty in-box.