Today I got an email from my grandma: "If writing is so hard why not go lay brick"
(And I thought grandpa was the editor.)
I wrote back: "Because I'm a writer not a bricklayer."
Truth is I love writing. Especially on days like today when after four days of agonizing I have three decent paragraphs and a pretty good idea of where to go with however many graphs I have yet to write.
As Joyce Carol Oats said, the vice has loosened and I feel incredible.
I have a hunch that if I'd approached a bricklayer yesterday, when it was 105 degrees, and asked him what I thought of his job he'd say he'd rather be a writer.
A Chicago Tribune Best Book of the Year
A Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year
One of Kansas City Star's 100 Noteworthy Books of the Year
Winner of the William Rockhill Nelson Award for Nonfiction
Winner of the Harry Chapin Media Award
. . .
Forget the nerdy reputation that debate has. Instead think of a scenario as exciting as a sports game with high stakes like triumphing over racism. bad politics and abject poverty... An important, thoughtful and provocative look at race and class in America.
- The Boston Globe
Joe Miller's enthusiasm is infectious and the plot creates the suspense of a good courtroom thriller.
- Entertainment Weekly
The minute I finished Joe Miller's Cross-X, I held the book out in front of me -- amazed, rapturous, and hopeful... Miller's mesmerizing, vivid accounts of the debates will leave you crouched in your seat, holding your breath... An incredibly powerful, daringly hopeful book.
- Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Irresistible... Miller begins breezily but is soon deeply invested in the Central squad's mission to not only master the debate game on its own terms but revolutionize it with flashes of poetry and hip-hop wordplay... If all these kids could run things, Miller implies, imagine what could get done.
- Elle
1 comment:
Gotta agree with your Grandma. If bricklayers belly-ached about their chosen profession half as much as writers do, we would send them off to Whiner's Island and just use concrete slabs.
Sorry you had a rough time coming up with your paragraphs - I know the feeling. But I also have laid blacktop in the St. Louis summer, and I'll take the seat in front of a typewriter any day.
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