The 4 Burners theory is another way of telling us we can’t do what we want with our lives… Life is a tapestry, not a stove.
passion
On Bach and Scales: Passion or Purpose?
The Quote “One does not play Bach without having done scales. But neither does one play a scale merely for the sake of the scale.” -Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace The Question Is this quote about purpose, or about passion? If it’s about purpose, I think Weil is saying both that art cannot be created without […]
How To Avoid Sucking Fun Out Of Your Passion
While signing my high school yearbook, a friend who’d been in the music program with me wrote that she admired me for going to college for music, that she’d considered it herself but didn’t want to ruin her “innocent love” for music. I’d never thought of it that way before, but it struck me as worrisome. If you […]
The Three “P”s of Writing Productivity
I’ve been working on upping my writing productivity this summer. It’s a necessary focus, what with completing draft 1 of my novel, posting fifteen blog posts and two newsletters a month, and managing social media for two websites. If I want to continue on that ambitious path, I need to be super-organized, and I need to […]
If You Want To Discover What You Love, Take A Vacation
Last weekend, my husband and I took a trip to Vermont. We hadn’t made many plans for the trip: we had a room booked for two nights at a B&B, and we knew the route we planned to take up north, but that was about it. We’d never been to the area before. When we left, […]
Love Your Day Job
One morning last week, I woke up to a rejection in my inbox. I’m as accustomed to these emails as any writer, but this was a particularly rough moment for me. I’d been riding high, because several agents have requested my full manuscript recently, and I was hoping that meant an offer would be coming […]