Goodbye 2010

We here at Blogagaard thought we'd close out 2010 with two excerpts from Anne Lamott's book on writing bird by bird. The passages can be found in the introduction, right across the page from each other (a concept that will only make sense to those of you still reading actual "books" heading into 2011). Happy New Year everyone.

"And then I tell my students that the odds of their getting published and of it bringing them financial security, peace of mind, and even joy are probably not that great. Ruin, hysteria, bad skin, unsightly tics, ugly financial problems, maybe; but probably not peace of mind...My writer friends, and they are legion, do not go around beaming with quiet feelings of contentment. Most of them go around with haunted, abused, surprised looks on their faces, like lab dogs on whom very personal deodorant sprays have been tested."

"But I also tell them that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, they feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them, and they just want to help them get out."