I start every day by reading Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac, which comes to me over email. You can subscribe to it for free, and I'd recommend it most highly. Each installment comes with a poem, and it's always an accessible, readable poem, not one of those poems where you have no idea what it even means. And then you get a few little tidbits about literary anniversaries, memorable quotes, glimpses into famous and not-so-famous writers' lives.
Today I particularly liked this quote from poet and essayist Robert Pinsky: "Whatever makes a child want to glue macaroni on a paper plate and paint the assemblage and see it on the refrigerator — that has always been strong in me."
Yes! I love how this speaks both to the creative impulse in all of us - the desire to mess around with gluing and painting that macaroni - but also the equally strong desire to share what we have made for the appreciation of others: look at what I made!
Last night my writing group met and I shared the new beginning of the new book, the one that I already knew they would like because I had emailed it to Leslie as soon as I wrote it and she had given me her praise and encouragement. So I could settle in and savor the pleasure of having them like it. One of the best things about our writing group is Marie's laugh. Sometimes I think my only goal as a writer is to make Marie laugh, because Marie's laugh is such a wonderful thing. And last night she did laugh during my chapter, not once but several times.
She loved my glued and painted macaroni. She did!
The Writer's Almanac is also available as a podcast. I love to hear Garrison Keillor's voice as he reads his comments and the poem. It reminds me of all the times I listened to the Prairie Home Companion, the trips I made to see him at Town Hall in NYC and the time I shared an elevator with him in St. Paul.
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