When people ate simply and out of necessity, food was appreciated as a source of energy and vitality, not viewed as an enemy. The real gift in the brown paper wrappers is that InSpiral goodies make it easy and pleasurable to think of food in a more natural, wholesome way.
May 20, 2012
Contrary to what many people believe, to be daring is a decision, not an accident of personality.
May 13, 2012
After two routine-bitten years, it looked like the storybook romance wasn’t going to survive the prosaic facts of married life. Nancy was down to one idea: apply for work as a couple, teaching at an international school. John thought she was nuts.
May 8, 2012
There is an incredibly poignant piece in the Guardian on the top five regrets of the dying. It is so easy to get caught up in busy-ness and think: “I’ll be happy tomorrow, I’ll talk to my friend tomorrow, I’ll make time for myself tomorrow, I’ll start following my dream tomorrow.” No, no, no. Think… [Read more…]
May 4, 2012
Nancy is an extraordinary woman disguised as a bead-work-loving Boise soccer mom but - as she'll be the first to say - her secret is that there is no secret. There was no single magic moment that transformed her settled life into a non-stop adventure. It was a choice, a choice she had to make daily, hourly, sometimes with every turn of the peddle. Here, in an excerpt from my work, Nancy describes the distinctly non-triumphal beginning of the Family on Bikes saga:
May 2, 2012
Why be content with being your ideal self in just two-dimensions? Take a good, long look at how you project yourself on Facebook then figure out how you can become that in real life. Ultimately, Facebook is a tool. Use it to build a persona, or use it to become more of a person.
April 30, 2012
Factual writing, done right, calls for curiosity, insight, empathy, humility and the willingness to face (as Orwell puts it) unpleasant facts.
April 16, 2012
You can only progress as a writer if you write, and the more you write the more you understand and trust the process of writing. I’d urge you to get into the habit of finishing work. The temptation to abandon a piece can be great (and no doubt there are times when you do need to let something go), but you learn more and feel a real sense of accomplishment when you complete something.
March 26, 2012
John McPhee, the great American factual writer (he doesn’t like the word nonfiction: “nonfiction — what the hell, that just says, this is nongrapefruit we’re having this morning. It doesn’t mean anything. You had nongrapefruit for breakfast; think how much you know about that breakfast”) on why writing is hard but not writing is impossible:… [Read more…]
March 18, 2012
The writing is a sustained, beautiful sleight-of-hand peppered with parenthetical rabbits popping out of hats. The delicate, ruthless details (asking the fading old man to disinter his dead wife's wedding dress), the moments of private meditation
May 24, 2012
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