I have been reading Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal. It’s a book about dying in America, and–for anyone dealing directly with this subject (and who among us is not?)–it is full of gems. One of them, in the chapter about his own father, is ODTAA syndrome: One Damn Thing After Another. Anyway, I went searching this evening for […]
“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” E.L. Doctorow Last Friday afternoon, after visiting with my mom, I drove to the ferry in Kingston only to find the Sound completely socked in by fog. […]
“Think of your talent as a young and skittish horse that you are bringing along. This horse is very talented but it is also young, nervous, and inexperienced. It will make mistakes, be frightened by obstacles it hasn’t seen before. It may even bolt, try to throw you off, feign lameness. Your job, as the […]
The Artist’s Way just dropped a new insight into my in-box. For years I’ve been proudly describing myself as a “laissez faire” parent and teacher. Friend. Spouse. “A policy or attitude of letting things take their own course, without interfering.” I do it in my writing life, too, and I’ve written about it before. I’m […]