Sharon Olds’s huge archive of thinking and feeling
Tootzi instilled a philosophy of “all that exists is the artifact that’s on the table.” It doesn’t matter if your ideas come from your mind, your heart, your soul, your belly button, the tops of mountains, a bottle of red wine, or from managing an in-house spider colony (this was Salvidore Dali’s process). No matter how you arrive, conscious or unc... See more
Michael Dean • The Secret Architecture of Great Essays
One of the few things I know about writing is this: spend it all, shoot it,
play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. Do not hoard what seems good
for a later place in the book, or for another book; give it, give it all, give it
now. The impulse to save something good for a better place later is the
signal to spend it now. Something more will aris
... See more
There were two large, plain, rectangular desks in my studio; I had arrayed the homely, worn journals—Mead notebooks, bound books, composition books, drawing pads—across one of these desks, a topographical timeline of twenty years of my life. If a person wanted to know about boys and yearning, this was definitely the place to look. I just had to sit
... See moreClaire Dederer • Love and Trouble
