Grace in Small Things, November 1, 2011
This church, Saints Peter and Paul in San Francisco, features prominently in what I was writing today. Isn't it beautiful?
1. Blew off work today (I've been working some on the weekends the past couple weeks, so I felt justified) and wrote essentially all day. Have a headache now, but it was so worth it. I'm writing a lot about San Francisco these days, and today I worked on a piece about the murder I witnessed while I was living there (awful), and the last guy I dated before I moved away (sweet). (The two are intertwined in a weird way.) All this stuff about San Francisco...these are things I've been trying to write for years...feels good to have parts of it at least finally coming together...
2. My mom came over and we went for a walk and had such a nice talk about things that really matter...
3. Texted back-and-forth with a dear friend of mine who didn't know about my blog until today. Hi Stacey! So happy you're my newest reader! :)
4. Windy this afternoon and the golden leaves are fluttering down outside my office window...almost like falling snow...lovely
5. Talked with my biggest client some more about maternity leave...we'd talked in broad strokes before about what I want (3 months off, then working part time, and no more crazy-long work weeks...I'm going to have to be more protective of my time), but today we got more into the nitty-gritty of how it's going to work. Everything is falling nicely into place
In fact, that's how I feel about life in general today...everything's falling into place. It's such a good feeling...
XOXO
Image Credit: The Dana Files.
Writing/Creativity: Check Out This Post
Today I want to link y’all out to a blog post by Austin Kleon (discovered via {this post})--entitled “How to Steal Like and Artist (And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me).” You can access his post/presentation by clicking {here}.
A couple things really stood out for me:
First, he talks about "writing the book you want to read/writing what you LIKE" (vs what you KNOW, which is what all writers are told at one point or another). (And if you paint or make music or blog, etc, substitute the correct verb for those activities…it applies just the same.)
Right now and I think a lot this summer, I’m working/going to be working on this weird little collection of non-fiction stories from the seven years I lived in San Francisco (1996-2003). This is exactly what I’m doing with these stories. It’s a book I wish I could find and devour. I’m also not liking reading fiction much these days, although I keep thinking of going back to it in my writing. But I really want to read and write nonfiction at the moment, so I should probably just go with that vs fighting it. And I keep worrying about how I’m writing about San Francisco, because it's a kind of experimental form, the structure's weird (read: not as commercially viable as it would be if I were writing it straight). But I like reading things like what I’m writing, things that don't necessarily follow the normal linear model. And it’s how this book wants to be written, so…
Love this quote:
“The best way to find the work you should be doing is to think about the work you want to see done that isn’t being done, and then go do it.”
The other thing that really resonated with me was Mr. Kleon’s stating that "creativity is subtraction."
“It’s often what an artist chooses to leave out that makes the art interesting. What isn’t shown vs what is.”
Again with my San Francisco stories, I’m leaving a lot out. They’re very short and spare, ask people to work hard reading between the lines. I’ve been wondering if that’s a good strategy. It’s nice to hear from someone that leaving things out is a viable, even desirable option. (Not that I need someone to tell me how to write this book. It's just nice to have some external validation every once in a while, you know?)
Anyway, hope y'all enjoy!
XO
Oh, and PS, his slides are AWESOME…light on text, lots of pictures, used to get across the big idea, vs the PowerPoint slides you often see, with tiny text and tons of bullets…the worst. I do slide presentations for work sometimes and my philosophy (nicely illustrated by Mr. Kleon’s slides) has been hugely influenced by a book called {Presentation Zen}. If you do presentations, I highly recommend checking it out.
Image credit: {Austin Kleon}.