(Source: myk-ale, via twistedwhispers)
Sexy song of the day
“Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the patterns away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your time thinking about them.”
-Mark Haddon
In January I imagined that would be zipping through my novel. I thought the neighbors would be complaining about all the noise from my typewriters. I also hoped I would be able to communicate in Spanish by now. I took the language class, but it it just didn’t take. (sigh). I pictured myself with all new clothes because my excellent nutrition and tireless exercise would have transformed me back to my high school self! You get the idea.
On the plus side. I did pick up and go to Paris in January. And I have kept true to my goal of writing at least three letters a month. (Recipients of these letters, can you write me back?) I’ve taken twitter and facebook off my phone, so I can be more present in my non-virtual life. It’s amazing how different life is when there’s isn’t a cocktail party going on in your phone. I’m actually something of a regular at my gym now. 3 days a week– 6am spin class. I’m seeing results, too. Slow, over-40 results, but something is happening and I’m proud of that. My novel is moving forward…. slooooowly. But it’s getting there. I am not satisfied with my progress, but I must give myself a little credit. That said, I have sort of lost that January sparkle. Maybe it’s because I have gotten some rejections for some of the opportunities I so enthusiastically applied for in winter. And maybe it’s just a natural ebb and flow. But whatever the cause, it’s a rut and I don’t like it.
So this year, I decided to do the resolution thing more often. So my resolve petered out in March. Well, then it’s time to get some new resolve. My idea is to try a summer resolution. What do I want to accomplish between Memorial Day and Labor Day? Here’s an (incomplete) list:
- Get in at least 4 writing days every week
- Add one extra day of weight training to my work out
- Go on two “artist dates” a month
- Learn to meditate
- In general, work harder at what matters to me
1 week ago - 
52
52My sense of a poem—my notion of how you revise—is: you get yourself into a state where what you are intensely conscious of is not why you wrote it or how you wrote it, but what you wrote. You just read it as a piece, as someone else might read it, and you see where it’s alive. If that voice that you created that is most alive in the poem isn’t carried throughout the whole poem, then I destroy where it’s not there, and I reconstruct it so that that voice is the dominant voice in the poem.
Philip Levine (via mttbll)
(Source: cortlandreview.com, via sadchimpson)
1 week ago - 25
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(via joostlultwel)
Molars: Junot Diaz Talk From A While Ago
Almost two years ago, Junot Diaz spoke at Montgomery County Community College, where one of my younger brothers goes to school. I went and listened and made notes afterward. He was pretty incredible. Here are the notes I made (everything below is paraphrased from his talk):
Art shows us our best…
3 weeks ago - 42
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