My favorite quote

There is neither a proportional relationship, nor an inverse one, between a writer's estimation of a work in progress and its actual quality. The feeling that it is magnificent, and the feeling that it is abominable, are both mosquitoes to be repelled, ignored, or killed but not indulged.
--Annie Dillard

I've been telling a lot of people lately about the quote I keep pinned up on the board above my desk in my office. It's a long one to declaim, so here it is, for those of you who wanted to read it.

More later,

Tammar

Dear Money

As a novelist, one of the most common questions one gets is "How are your sales?" And as novelist Martha McPhee says, that's just another way of asking "how much money do you make?" It's irritating because I'm pretty sure no one asks computer programmers how much they make. (Or maybe they do.)

But it got Martha McPhee thinking about art and money and then a legendary Wall Street trader propositioned her. He said if she gave him 18 months he'd turn her into a (multi-million dollar making) Wall Street trader. As a literary novelist, this must have been tempting. Money. So much money. Instead, she wrote a novel about a literary novelist, tight on money, who is propositioned by a legendary Wall Street trader who says he can turn her into a (multi-million dollar earning) bond trader. And she says yes.

Dear Money is such a wonderful read. Entertaining, lyrical, (and at one point, laugh out loud funny) and at the same time thought-provoking and disturbing. I loved it.

More later,

Tammar