Young girl with wings. Text: I do not care about your limits. I care only that you are seeking to find them.

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  • You ask me why I spend my life writing

    ByHeather

    You ask me why I spend my life writing?
    Do I find entertainment?
    Is it worthwhile?
    Above all, does it pay?
    If not, then, is there a reason? …

    I write only because there is a voice within me that will not be still.

    — Sylvia Plath

    For ten years during my late twenties and early thirties I kept a journal. I started writing modestly in college and it eventually grew into such a compulsion that I would often write for hours a day. The pen seemed to have a mind of its own. Sometimes I would start a sentence not knowing where it was going, only to be amazed at the journey that it would launch. Even as computers started to enter my life, I wrote everything longhand. There was something magic about the connection between my thoughts and the paper, linked through the pen clasped in my fingertips.

  • Influence

    ByHeather

    You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.

    — John Morley

    How many times have I wished that I had this pithy little quote on a card in my purse, ready to be handed to a belligerent blowhard, or an incessant evangelist, on a moment’s notice?

  • Aim for the sea…

    ByHeather

    A ship is safe in the harbor, but that is not what ships are built for.

    — William Shedd (or possibly Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper)

    I taught high school in the early 80’s. I had this quote hanging on my classroom wall in one of those inspirational-type posters with a sailboat setting out to sea. I suppose I was trying to inspire my students to reach for adventure as they launched themselves into the world. I still draw inspiration from these words every time I am faced with the choice of a challenge and an adventure or playing it safe.

  • Calculating the Distance to California

    ByHeather

    Something like 90% of the nations fruit and vegetables are grown in California’s Central Valley. Here is a simple calculator to determine how far you are from this fertile land:

    1. Buy a 1/2 pint of raspberries from your local supermarket
    2. Count how many raspberries are moldy
    3. Multiply the number of moldy raspberries by 250. This is your distance in miles from California.

    For example, I am in Northern Michigan this week. I counted at least 9 moldy raspberries in the pack. 9 x 250 = 2,500. This is the approximate distance from my location to California’s Central Valley.

    Q.E.D.

  • Steinbeck on Writing

    ByHeather

    I think there is only one book to a man. It is true that a man may change or be so warped that he becomes another man and has another book but I do not think that it is so with me.

    — John Steinbeck, Journals of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters

    East of Eden was the first book that I read by Steinbeck. It was moving and well written and rich with characters. Then I discovered Journals of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters and suddenly I felt I had been given a back stage pass to the mind of a writer.

    Steinbeck had already written Of Mice and Men (1937) and The Grapes of Wrath (1939) when he set out to write East of Eden (1951). In the intervening years he lived through two divorces and served as a war correspondent. Despite the critical success of his earlier works, his standing as a major novelist had faded. As today’s quote reveals, Steinbeck also felt that he had not yet told the one story that was within him. His editor, Pascal Covici, did all that he could to encourage Steinbeck. Covici sent Steinbeck a number of notebooks and instructed Steinbeck to use them to write.

  • On the Financial Meltdown

    ByHeather

    As they say on Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, “and now for some quotes from this week’s news.”

    First, a delightful blog I discovered called The Big Picture by Barry L. Ritholtz. In a post titled The Underlying Basis of Finance and Credit, Mr Ritholtz observes:

    Over the entire history of human finance, the underlying premise of all credit transactions — loans, mortgages, and all debt instrument — has been the borrower’s ability to repay.

    Except for [the 5 year period from 2002 to 2007] the entire history of human finance was rather reasonable about the basis for making loans in general, and extending mortgage loans in particular.

    For 99.9996% of the last 1.2 million years, loans were granted primarily on the condition of whether or not the lender believed that the borrower could repay. Between 2002 and 2007 this condition was dropped.

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