Winter Blahs?

Hi, everyone!

I don't know about you, but I feel like I've been in hibernation since the holidays. Fortunately, I've managed to do a little writing while I've been hunkering down -- I hope you have, too. Great to see many of you last week at our monthly Writers Workshop. I hope you'll join us for the next one.

In the meantime, I'm going to try to post updates here once a week, and I welcome your submissions. If you'd like share some of your work-in-progress, a personal essay or anecdote, or something writing-related that you came across, please e-mail me.

Today, the latter: The following passage comes out of a new novel by Carolyn Parkhurst, called The Nobodies Album (I recommend it!). The protagonist is a writer and here's what she has to say in her narrative:

“I’ve always known that the best part of writing occurs before you’ve picked up a pen. When a story exists only in your mind, its potential is infinite; it’s only when you start pinning words to paper that it becomes less than perfect. You have to make your choices, set your limits. Start whittling away at the cosmos, and don’t stop until you’ve narrowed it down to a single, ordinary speck of dirt. And in the end, what you’ve made is not nearly as glorious as what you’ve thrown away.”