Books I wrote that I can’t read

Wednesday, January 22, 2020

It is strange to look at a pile of books that you wrote that you can’t read. People often ask me about the quality of the foreign editions or complain about a translation and I have to admit them that even though the books have my name on them, I had absolutely nothing to do with any of them. Like, nothing. I wrote them, sure, but I can’t vouch for what’s in them! Who knows?!? Translation is weird. (Especially for a hick American who only speaks English.)

And yet, I’m so grateful to my translators and foreign publishers. Every time a new translation comes in the mail it’s a little thrill. For example, look at the gigantic Russian editions in hardcover! So fun. (I’ve lost count of the number of languages. Several are not shown in these pictures — including the foreign editions of Keep Going.) Getting your words in the world is a crazy thing. I wish I could be in all the places my books have been…

Look up

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Last week I read about Richard F. Shepard, a writer and editor at the New York Times who took interns and new reporters at the paper on epic tours of New York, teaching them how to investigate and navigate the city.

He said you can’t really figure out the city unless you travel on foot. Here’s what he wrote in his book, Going Out In New York: A Guide for the Curious:

There is no one real New York. It is more of a collage of bits and pieces, each with its own character, often absolutely contradictory to all others and yet purely New York… The only way to savor these varied panoramas is to stroll through; you can see them by car but you can only feel them on foot.

He also said you have to look up:

Look up, he said. Look especially at second-floor windows above storefronts. That, he liked to say, is where a lot of absorbing action takes place. Why would a perambulating soul wish to miss any of it?

Filed under: walking.

The Hawk (a comics diary)

Monday, January 20, 2020

“The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life.”
—Helen Macdonald, H Is for Hawk

Here is a picture of the hawk. And:

Sunday morning

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Breakfast:

A morning moon,
a hungry hawk,
and a pair of knuckleheads
sharing a pair of binoculars.

Not a bad life.

One method of writing

Saturday, January 18, 2020

Before anyone asks: here’s what kind of notebooks I use.

“I make sure I never face a blank page.”
—Lydia Davis

One method of writing (that works for me):

Make note of every dumb thought that occurs to you throughout the day.

Tomorrow morning, pick the thought you think ~~is the least dumb~~ is the most interesting* and write more about it.

Repeat ad infinitum. (Or ad nauseam. You know, whatever works…)

Just write the thing down now, when it seizes you. You have the whole eternal afterwards to decide whether or not it's dumb.

— Julia Gfrörer (@thorazos) January 7, 2020

* I edited this because sometimes the dumbest thought could be the most interesting thought and the one that gets you somewhere. “It’s a fine line between stupid and clever.”