Monthly Archives: August 2011

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.”

— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

What keeps you from writing that shitty first draft?

“There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophies.”

–Friedrich Nietzche

Tell me about a time your body gave you something you didn’t expect.

“Strawberries are too delicate to be picked by machine. The perfectly ripe ones even bruise at too heavy a human touch. It hit her then that every strawberry she had ever eaten – every piece of fruit – had been picked by calloused human hands. Every piece of toast with jelly represented someone’s knees, someone’s aching back and hips, someone with a bandanna on her wrist to wipe away the sweat. Why had no one told her about this before?

 

–Alison Luterman, “What They Came For”

Tell me the story of someone who worked with his or her hands.