This week…
1 The air is cooler…
Look at these frost-fringed white poplar leaves!
2 I made cookies
They are called Browned Butter Banana Bread Oatmeal Cookies and are as substantial as their title. (From Well Made By Kiley, via Tess Madalyn on Tik Tok) There are now 2 bananas fewer in my freezer.
3 Card Games
Our friends invited us over to play card games. It was so cozy! I learned James Bond
and Trash
And the kids sang Karaoke.
4 Fog and other scenery
One day there was fog, and it was like nature’s aperture, forcing you to only focus on what was closer… I liked how the building from the University campus across the river loomed like a ghost.
The next day, bright sunshine! Blue skies!
5 Quote
Recently on Hattie Crisell’s podcast In Writing, the episode ended with this quote, a perfect summary in my opinion, of the gamut of emotion one can feel from day to day, just writing… It’s from Hari Kunzru.
I get great pleasure from writing, but not always or even usually. Writing a novel is largely an exercise in psychological discipline, trying to balance your project on your chin while negotiating a minefield of depression and freak out. Beginning is daunting, being in the middle makes you feel like Sisyphus. Ending sometimes comes with the disappointment that this finite collection of words is all that remains of your infinitely rich idea. Along the way, there are the pitfalls of self-disgust, boredom, disorientation and a lingering sense of inadequacy, occasionally alternating with episodes of hysterical self-congratulation, as you fleetingly believe that you’ve nailed that particular sentence, and are surely destined to join the ranks of the immortals, only to be confronted the next morning with an appalling farrago of cliches that no sane human could read without vomiting. But when you’re in the zone, spinning words like plates, there’s a deep sense of satisfaction and, yes, enjoyment.
Happy Friday!