Bless the notebook that I always carry in my pocket.
And the pen.
Bless the words with which I try to say what I see, think, or feel.
With gratitude for the grace of the earth.
The expected and the exception, both.
For all the hours I have been given to be in this world.
– Mary Oliver, Good Morning
As you may know, I’m delighted to be a part of the Great New Books team. Collectively we recommend books we’ve loved (“new” generally means recent though not brand-spanking-new). I’m proud of the way Great New Books has stuck to the philosophy of only recommending books we truly love. In a book review climate littered with not-so-genuine raves, I find this to be somewhat rare.
This week, we’re sharing our favorite books of 2014. Spoiler: I wrote about one of my top 3, but the other 2 were covered by others on our team!
I hope you’ll click over and read about the team’s favorite reads of 2014. In the next weeks we’ll also talk about our most-anticipated reads of 2015 and our favorite classic books.
Kristen’s blog, Little Lodestar, is one of my regular reads. Last week she asked as series of nine provocative questions that I have not been able to stop thinking about. I wanted to share them here, along with my answers, and pose them to all of you at the same time. I’m endlessly fascinated by and hungry for the details of the lives of writers, the sources of their inspiration, and the particular decisions they make on a given day. I am impressed by Kristen’s deliberate effort to call herself a writer as that is something I struggle with myself.
This blog, and the online world I found through it, has brought me many surprises, but one of my most favorite has been how supportive the blogging community is. My interest in Kristen’s questions and in your answers is just a further manifestation of that support and community. I found the comments on Kristen’s post engrossing and look forward to learning more here. Another way this community works is that it was my friend Nina Badzin who originally gave me the idea to share these questions, and my answers, here. She did the same yesterday and I hope you will click over and read her thoughts on the writing life and on Kristen’s questions. Nina and Kristen are both writers for whom I have the utmost esteem and affection, and I am grateful every day to have met them in this online world.
Without further ado, I’m happy to share Kristen’s questions and ask any of you who are willing to answer them here in the comments (or on your blog!).
1. Do you share your work with your partner or spouse? Does it matter if it’s been published yet? (I share with my husband something that I submit elsewhere only AFTER it’s been published, and I am pretty certain he does not read my blog 90% of the time.)
My husband reads my blog most of the time, though I think the attention that it receives varies depending on the day. I show him my published pieces too, though don’t know that he’s really focused on most of them.
2. How much of your family and/or closest “friends in real life first” read your stuff…let alone give you feedback about it? (Comments from my family and friends, either online or in person, are overwhelmingly rare. I’m totally fine with that, but I am curious if this is the norm for others.)
Many of my family members and close friends do not read my blog, though some do. Those who do rarely comment but when people do reach out to me it means a huge amount (enormous thanks to those of you who do this!) My feelings about this topic are complicated. Agree with Nina that it’s a lot to ask that people read. On the other hand, I’m deeply grateful that some people read.
3. What do you do with the pieces that continually get rejected–post on your blog? Trash? When do you know it’s time to let it go?
Sometimes I post on my blog. Sometimes I just let them go. The truth is I don’t submit a whole lot.
4. Are there pieces you write for one very specific place that, once rejected, you just let go of, or do you rework into something else?
The only specific place I really write for is my blog, so I don’t run into that much. Or, if asked specifically (for someone else’s blog or for a magazine or something). I have written a complete memoir and half of another one, both of which I let go of. I wrote about that particular letting-go process a couple of years ago. That was a big one.
5. What is your main source of reading-based inspiration (especially you essayists)? Blogs? Magazines? Journals? Anthologies? Book of essays by one writer?
Blogs, books, and poetry. I read several blogs religiously, many more regularly, and I read fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. I always have a book on my bedside table and read before bed almost every single night. Actually I do read every single night, but now and then it’s a magazine instead of my book!
6. What tends to spark ideas more for you: what you see/hear in daily life or what you read?
That’s such a good question. I would say I draw inspiration from both of those sources; what I see and experience as well as what I read.
7. Who have you read in the past year or two that you feel is completely brilliant but so underappreciated?
Another excellent question. There are many bloggers writing today whose work I think is as good or better than what I read in more traditional channels; I think many are underappreciated. I wish more people read poetry, because as a genre I think it’s wildly underappreciated.
8. Without listing anything written by Dani Shapiro, Anne Lamott, Lee Gutkind, or Natalie Goldberg, what craft books are “must haves”?
Stephen King’s On Writing 
I would sincerely love to hear any of your answers to any of these questions. Thank you Kristen for the inspiration!
A favorite picture from right now, last night, which I shared on Instagram.
What I Learned Today in School – Jessica is my oldest and dearest friend, and she’s also both a hugely talented teacher and a wildly beautiful writer. I adore her reminder that school should be, her her words, “a space — real, imagined or virtual — of learning.” Her what I’m reading page is full of excellent suggestions and the brief, digestible stories she tells every day are inspiring and thoughtful. I can’t say enough about this beautiful, thoughtful new blog.
On Walking the Walk – I was so reassured by this piece on Yogapata, profoundly moved to hear the admission that we all sometimes struggle to do as we say. This seems particularly true when it comes to the voices in our head; if we could all speak to ourselves with the compassion and love that we so often show to others, things would be entirely different. I highly recommend this short essay.
51 of the Most Beautiful Sentences in Literature – This Buzzfeed article was just like reading one long, glorious exhale. What a reminder of the crystalline power of language to move us, touch us, make us less alone, make us see the world in a different way. There were sentences I know well and those I’d never heard before on here. Reading this list reminded me of how much I want to re-read Four Quartets, so that’s on my bedside table now. So many of my favorites and many that I’ve shared on this blog are on this list (Rosencrant & Gildenstern, Cheryl Strayed, Eliot, Harry Potter). Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.
Embrace the Intrusions – I adore this piece by Andrea Jarrell, which I just found. She beautifully evokes the push-pull demands and complicated myriad identities that mother-writers, especially those with young children, often feel. I love the advice to embrace the intrusions. This piece reminds me of Anne Tyler’s quote that “it seems to me that since I’ve had children, I’ve grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.”
I just read Mary Oliver’s latest book, Blue Horses
I’m also ready to say that my top 3 novels of 2014 were All the Light We Cannot See
What were your favorites of the year? What should I read over the holidays? What’s on your mind, your bedside table, your kindle, and your heart lately?
I write these Things I Love posts approximately monthly. You can find all of the previous ones here.
“…but behind each piece, animating every attempt, is the echo of a precarious faith, that we are more intimately bound to one another by our kindred doubts than our brave conclusions.”
-Charles D’Ambrosio, Loitering
Thank you again to my dearly beloved friend and kindred spirit, Lacy, for sending me this beautiful line.