Gretchen VanEsselstyn

May 16 2013 ∞
“

The hardest or least enjoyable part?

I have to take a deep breath before I start the first full revision. I used to hate myself for procrastinating, but now I see it might be wise. You need to pause in holy fear at what you’ve done, and make sure you don’t wreck it in panic.
— Hilary Mantel: By The Book, NY Times, May 16, 2013

+ ∞
“

What’s the best thing about writing a book?

The moment, at about the three-quarter point, where you see your way right through to the end: as if lights had flooded an unlit road. But the pleasure is double-edged, because from this point you’re going to work inhuman hours, not caring about your health or your human relationships; you’re just going to head down that road like a charging bull.
— Hilary Mantel: By The Book, NY Times, May 16, 2013

May 09 2013 ∞
“ Going through a drawer I found the submissions/applications log I’ve kept off and on over the years. Just in case you think it’s all been roses I’d like to report that Yaddo rejected me (as recently as 2011). McDowell rejected me. Hedgebrook rejected me twice. The Georgia Review rejected me and Ploughshares rejected me and Tin House rejected me, as did about twenty other journals and magazines. Both The Sun and The Missouri Review rejected me before I appeared in their pages. Literary Arts declined to give me a fellowship three times before I won one. I’ve applied for an NEA five times and it’s always been a no. Harper’s magazine never even bothered to reply. I say it all the time but I’ll say it again: keep on writing. Never give up. Rejection is part of a writer’s life. Then, now, always.
—

Cheryl Strayed | Facebook

Cheryl knows.

(via therumpus)

TESTIFY

(via therumpus)

334 notes

May 08 2013 ∞
npr: There is one kind of food writer who gets stuffed in the closet when cookbook awards are given out. He or she is the ghost — the person who does the actual writing for busy chefs and celebrities. Sounds like a dream job, right? Well, maybe. JJ Goode is one of the busiest ghosts in the business. He has ghostwritten several books, including Truly Mexican and A Girl and Her Pig. — Meet the cookbook ghostwriter behind busy chefs’ best sellers | The Splendid Table Photo: iStockphoto.com I like this very much because it’s about my friend JJ but he is NOT a ghostwriter — he is a cookbook writer and his name is on the wonderful books that he writes with chefs. Nothing wrong with ghosting, but that’s not what he does.

npr:

There is one kind of food writer who gets stuffed in the closet when cookbook awards are given out. He or she is the ghost — the person who does the actual writing for busy chefs and celebrities. Sounds like a dream job, right? Well, maybe. JJ Goode is one of the busiest ghosts in the business. He has ghostwritten several books, including Truly Mexican and A Girl and Her Pig.

— Meet the cookbook ghostwriter behind busy chefs’ best sellers | The Splendid Table

Photo: iStockphoto.com

I like this very much because it’s about my friend JJ but he is NOT a ghostwriter — he is a cookbook writer and his name is on the wonderful books that he writes with chefs. Nothing wrong with ghosting, but that’s not what he does.

116 notes

May 04 2013 ∞

Clams, coffee, gin, waves. That’s how I finished my novel manuscript in Montauk.

2 notes

May 03 2013 ∞
nevver: Dream Interpretation Dictionary To sleep, perchance to dream of pudding. 

nevver:

Dream Interpretation Dictionary

To sleep, perchance to dream of pudding. 

1,282 notes

Apr 22 2013 ∞
theparisreview: E. L. Konigsburg, author of beloved children’s titles The View from Saturday, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, and, most famously, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, has died, at eighty-three. For more of this morning’s roundup, click here.Quote from From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Oh, how I will miss her. 

theparisreview:

E. L. Konigsburg, author of beloved children’s titles The View from Saturday, A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver, and, most famously, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, has died, at eighty-three.

For more of this morning’s roundup, click here.

Quote from From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

Oh, how I will miss her. 

706 notes

Apr 10 2013 ∞
poetsandwriters: From The 6.5 Practices of Moderately Successful Poets: A Self-Help Memoir. Ed. Jeffrey Skinner, Sarabande Books, 2012. Read and remember.

poetsandwriters:

From The 6.5 Practices of Moderately Successful Poets: A Self-Help Memoir. Ed. Jeffrey Skinner, Sarabande Books, 2012.

Read and remember.

27 notes

Apr 02 2013 ∞

“Attendez la crème.”

Finally I understand what the internet is for. 

(via bbook)

4,806 notes

Mar 18 2013 ∞
This statue of Dante used to be behind the public library when I was a kid, and college students would steal his head as a prank. It’s now in the small park behind the town hall in Fairfield.

This statue of Dante used to be behind the public library when I was a kid, and college students would steal his head as a prank. It’s now in the small park behind the town hall in Fairfield.

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