Summer Time

As a child, summers seemed endless. I played hopscotch, tag, and running bases with the kids on my street, and I spent two timeless weeks at the beach with my family, where I was toasted by sun and tumbled by waves. The season’s good weather and expansive leisure was...

Weeding and Words

Sometimes, weeding is the best way to learn how to write. Thinning plants can be as painful as deleting favorite passages of description or dialogue, and just as essential. If seedlings in my garden are two crowded, none of them thrive; if my page is crammed with too...
Rainy Sunday

Rainy Sunday

We had a rainy Sunday, the kind of cool, overcast day preparing to dissolve into rain, the kind of day best spent reading on the couch, the sort of Sunday for reading the New York Times. I planned to pick up a copy at the general store when it opened. In the meantime,...

How Long Does It Take To Write A Book?

“How long it take to write a book?” my dad asks. “It depends,” I answer. “How long does it have to be?” “As long as it needs,” I reply. “How long is the book you’re writing?” “It was four hundred pages.” I say. “Four hundred pages!” he says. “Wow!” “But now it’s just...

Now Too Old

I’m now too old to be young and beautiful, although now I suspect I was, back in the day.I’m now too old to be “successful” in the realm of public achievement, fame, and fortune, although I now question that definition of success.I’m too old to have more children, to...