Just write

Inspirational advice from Walter Dean Myers, heard on NPR's "Here and Now" yesterday.

"I tell the young people I meet to read. Read everything you can, looking for the ideas that give you hope and expand your sense of what’s possible. If you can’t find something you’re looking for in a book, write it yourself. Try to get published. You have stories that other kids might need to read. You have stories that should be heard. Maybe a reader will find your book when the timing’s just right and it will help save a life. So just write." 

Walter Dean Myers Shows Kids How To Succeed Under Tough Circumstances | Here & Now:

NaNoWriMo

A post for Immanuel, among others:

Ready to write your novel? Sign up here.

At NaNoWriMo, we provide the support, encouragement, and good old-fashioned kick in the pants you need to write the rough draft of your novel in November.

I'm such an inveterate editor, always revising as I go (and then revising the  revisions), that trying to crank out so many unexamined words so quickly would make me crazy. (Crazy in a good way, though, possibly?) And, I have all these papers to grade.

Older Daughter did it last year and says she's doing it again. Her lament on the way to school this morning: "I just want to go home and write!" Good for her. "Quantity over quality"  is the goal of a first draft, she says. I have a hard time committing to that, myself. Maybe next year? Or next month when nobody's looking?

Richard Ford

Happy birthday to one of my favorite writers, Richard Ford, who has an interesting response to critics who think some of his characters are too thoughtfully complex or "philosophical."

"Some critics have occasionally suggested that I impose on characters certain possibilities of thought or language or emotional experience, which that particular character, or to put it more gruesomely, those kinds of characters wouldn't likely be able to think or talk about. But my attitude is that there are no such things as kinds or types of characters in fiction or in life. Eloquence or penetrating understanding can visit anybody. In fact, it's fiction's business to try to enlarge our understanding of and sympathy for people. If to do that I have to strain your conventional understanding about humans — well that's also art's proper business and my hope is that I'll repay your indulgence."

And,

"The thing about being a writer is that you never have to ask, 'Am I doing something that's worthwhile?' Because even if you fail at it, you know that it's worth doing." Writer's Almanac

 On good days I say the same about teaching.

torn

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." He also said: "All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world."

writing & thinking

More tips for writers. #6, from Jonathan Safran Foer, is very good. [More good advice]

"I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." But that's poetically-licensed hyperbole: Emerson collected & wrote about them in the little notebooks he quaintly called "Universe." That's how he came to think for himself and know his own mind: writing, walking, talking, thinking... Simple things. Joy. And endurance.

Satch

The Cards are stuck on 1, the Rockies rallied and the Cubbies rocked. (Gotta love baseball poetry! Annie Dillard went on about that once, repeating "Terwilliger bunts one" until it turned the language to goo. Good writing does that sometimes.)

Sticking to the baseball theme...

Satchel Paige's Rules for Longevity

1. Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.

2. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.

3. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.

4. Go very light on the vices, such as carrying on in society. The social rumble ain't restful.

5. Avoid running at all times.

6. Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you.