WRITING WITHOUT A NET

Pages written since lost post: 57 Okay, I confess: I’m a complete Winter Olympics junkie. I love downhill, ski-jump, snow boarding, bobsled, luge, skeleton, short track, 1000 meter, cross country, and oh yes, figure skating– men’s women’s, pairs, ice dance. Once every four years, I even love hockey. For two weeks in February, I am glued to the television set for six to eight hours a day, cheering– not for a nation or an individual– but for the best. Because when records are broken, when personal bests are surpassed, when the impossible becomes history, gateways open up for all of us to surge through. This is what I’ve learned from the Olympics this year: You don’t make the podium by accident. Every one of these kids had a dream, and they believed in it enough to be at the rink at four o’clock in the morning to practice, every morning, without fail, for fifteen years, rain, snow, sleet, bad mood, heavy date, flu, birthday, Christmas , New Year’s, whatever ; to move across countr

Pages written since last post: 267 As you can see from the above statistic, that pesky little thing called writing a book has once again interfered with keeping this blog up-to-date. Here's what you missed: 1) Favorite book of 2009 (only two months late!): The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak. This, friends and neighbors, is why there will always be paper books. This is a book you want to hold in your hands, savoring every word, touching the pages, marveling over the design. It's not only that the book within a book does, in fact, look as though it was painted on a cellar wall by a fugitive in Nazi Germany; it's not only the elegance of the story; it's not only the prose that makes you want to weep from the sheer beauty of it; it is all of those things that come together to make one perfect novel. This is why there will always be paper books. Second Favorite Book : The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows and Mary Ann Shaffer. This b