On Voice
via The Josh Shop on Etsy
“Phoebe Ephron once told her daughter to write as if she were mailing a letter, ‘then, tear off the salutation’; this advice, combined with Ephron’s observational prowess, forged her signature voice.”
—The New Yorker, “The Nora Ephron We Forget”
Stuart Little and The Littles
Herewith an unfinished MS of a book called Stuart Little. It would seem to be for children, but I’m not fussy who reads it. You said you wanted to look at this, so I am presenting it thus in its incomplete state. There are about ten or twelve thousand words so far, roughly.
You will be shocked and grieved to discover that the principal character in the story has somewhat the attributes and appearance of a mouse. This does not mean that I am either challenging or denying Mr. Disney’s genius. At the risk of seeming a very whimsical fellow indeed, I will have to break down and confess to you that Stuart Little appeared to me in dream, all complete, with his hat, his cane, and his brisk manner. Since he was the only fictional figure ever to honor and disturb my sleep, I was deeply touched, and felt that I was not free to change him into a grasshopper or a wallaby. Luckily he bears no resemblance, either physically or temperamentally, to Mickey. I guess that’s a break for all of us.
E. B. White
Letter to his editor, Eugene Saxton
1st March 1939
Curator credit: Letters of Note by Shaun Usher
I loved this book - but it’s not to be confused with The Littles TV show… do you remember? Now I can’t get this song out of my head.
My heart almost stood still
A letter from Helen Keller to the New York Symphony Orchestra
93 Seminole Avenue,
Forest Hills, L. I.,
February 2nd, 1924.
The New York Symphony Orchestra,
New York City
Dear Friends:
I have the joy of being able to tell you that, though deaf and blind, I spent a glorious hour last night listening over the radio to Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony.” I do not mean to say that I “heard” the music in the sense that other people heard it; and I do not know whether I can make you understand how it was possible for me to derive pleasure from the symphony. It was a great surprise to myself. I had been reading in my magazine for the blind of the happiness that the radio was bringing to the sightless everywhere. I was delighted to know that the blind had gained a new source of enjoyment; but I did not dream that I could have any part in their joy. Last night, when the family was listening to your wonderful rendering of the immortal symphony someone suggested that I put my hand on the receiver and see if I could get any of the vibrations. He unscrewed the cap, and I lightly touched the sensitive diaphragm. What was my amazement to discover that I could feel, not only the vibrations, but also the impassioned rhythm, the throb and the urge of the music! The intertwined and intermingling vibrations from different instruments enchanted me. I could actually distinguish the cornets, the roll of the drums, deep-toned violas and violins singing in exquisite unison. How the lovely speech of the violins flowed and plowed over the deepest tones of the other instruments! When the human voice leaped up trilling from the surge of harmony, I recognized them instantly as voices. I felt the chorus grow more exultant, more ecstatic, upcurving swift and flame-like, until my heart almost stood still. The women’s voices seemed an embodiment of all the angelic voices rushing in a harmonious flood of beautiful and inspiring sound. The great chorus throbbed against my fingers with poignant pause and flow. Then all the instruments and voices together burst forth—an ocean of heavenly vibration—and died away like winds when the atom is spent, ending in a delicate shower of sweet notes.
Of course, this was not “hearing” but I do know that the tones and harmonies conveyed to me moods of great beauty and majesty. I also sensed, or thought I did, the tender sounds of nature that sing into my hand—swaying reeds and winds and the murmur of streams. I have never been so enraptured before by a multitude of tone-vibrations.
As I listened, with darkness and melody, shadow and sound filling all the room, I could not help remembering that the great composer who poured forth such a flood of sweetness into the world was deaf like myself. I marvelled at the power of his quenchless spirit by which out of his pain he wrought such joy for others—and there I sat, feeling with my hand the magnificent symphony which broke like a sea upon the silent shores of his soul and mine.
Let me thank you warmly for all the delight which your beautiful music has brought to my household and to me. I want also to thank Station WEAF for the joy they are broadcasting in the world.
With kindest regards and best wishes, I am,
Sincerely yours,
Helen Keller
(credit: Shaun Usher, via Letters of Note)
January: One Line at a Time
Image: Edward & Josephine Hopper's New York Notes, Noted by Jillian Hess
January 1
2024 Goals: Finish what you start. Build community. Eat more protein.
January 2
Dan, Hugo and Sophia were nearly stranded on the side of the mountain during a snowstorm. Dan was pretty nervous but focused on getting chains on the tires. Hugo made it his mission to find food, water and blankets in case they got stranded. Sophia called home and asked me to plug in the curling iron because she was going to be running late for the nightclub and didn’t want to have to wait for the curling iron to heat up when she got home.
January 3
Yesterday was World Introvert Day, which I didn’t realise because I spent 10 hours writing in my journal and planning a solo trip to Tenerife.
January 4
It’s downright blustery. Icy whitecaps are pounding the waterfront and last night the deck chairs flew off the terrace and into the bushes. We’ve eaten all the leftovers in the house and are subsisting on stale bread (pain perdu!) and coffee. This made for a delicious dinner and breakfast, but I think it’s time for me to bundle up and venture into the village for provisions. And by provisions, I mean cheese.
January 5
Kelly helped Dad sort out his phone so that his Face ID works. But somehow he got it in his head that the phone takes your ‘pitcher’ each time you unlock it. So now every time he needs to use his phone, he sits up properly and smiles his best smile. It’s the cutest thing ever.
January 6
All my clothes smell like cheese.
January 7
A few weeks ago, I re-started my blog so that I could practice sharing creative work. Sort of like a daily drip of creativity. So the pipes don’t freeze. And tomorrow I’m posting a substack for the first time in a long time. I don’t know why I’m so nervous, literally no one cares.
January 8
Drove from Annecy to Calais, listening to various podcasts and books I discovered Joanna Penn and now I am AI Positive.
January 9
Slept at the Holiday Inn Calais. Míša barfed every two hours all night long. The hotel room was carpeted and she refused to go into the tiled bathroom. So each time she started to gag, I had to quickly get dressed, take the elevator downstairs, walk her through the lobby and across the driveway so that she could puke in the grass. Then we went back upstairs and repeated the cycle 90 minutes later. All. Night. Long.
January 10
I attended a workshop today where the presenter read from her script for a full hour, barely looking up. At one point she read the following advice: When you go into a meeting, don’t read directly from your notes. Make it more of a conversation.
January 11
Overheard at the cafe:
The mosquitos love me, right mum?
They bite me with a little needle on the end of their nose, right mum?
We need to spray me with stinky spray, right mum?
So that I don’t taste so delicious, right mum?
January 12
This was the best night I’ve had in a very long time! I attended a literary salon at a friend’s home. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eliza Griswold spoke about her career and the craft of writing books. God, if only I could do something like this every week… I loved it so much.
January 13
Went to a co-writing session in Waterloo at a place called The Glitch. I wrote some words. If I delete them all and start over, I might have something.
January 14
This morning, I was running late to yoga. I grabbed a pair of leggings and realised too late they were Sasha’s (size XXS). Once I got them on, I couldn’t get them off, so I had to go to yoga wearing them and as the class went on, I got hotter and hotter and my legs looked like two sausages about to bust through their casings.
January 15
Went to Pilates at 8am. The instructor was a mean, sharp stick of a woman with swollen lips who played rave music at full volume. I asked her to turn it down, which she only pretended to do, and then 5 minutes later turned it even louder.
January 16
I fell into a rabbit hole this morning, lost all track of time and nearly missed my hair appointment. The reason was Sarah Miller. She’s a little bit like David Sedaris, if David Sedaris was a woman and not obsessed with garbage collecting and taxidermy.
January 17
Today was the greyest of grey. London looked cold and felt colder. Soph and I tried to find beauty by traipsing all the way across town to attend the London Art Fair. But honestly, we were both tired and cold and our hearts weren’t in it. We walked around for about an hour, had coffee and schlepped ourselves home again.
January 18
Last night on an LWS Gold Circle call, I shared my Query Letter with an agent who was incredibly complimentary and yet couldn’t have been less interested in my idea. Oh well. The reminder: everyone’s trying to sell a memoir. If you don’t have a platform, you better have a clear and specific story to tell.
January 19
Kelly is such an inspiration to me. January is hard for her (too), so she’s doing a personal challenge: every day in January she’s doing something that scares her! Not like, jump out of an airplane scary, but you know, something do-able. For example, she’s taken a lot of cold showers. Or gone the entire day without screens… She did her first hot yoga class! She went line dancing (alone)! And - all this without drinking any alcohol. Which is also part of her January plan. I’m super impressed.
January 20
Lately my mindset has been January sucks, London is depressing and writing is boring and hard. I need to flip the script and make it a mantra. Because: “Whatever you hold in your mind on a consistent basis is exactly what you will experience in life.” (Tony Robbins, I think?)
January 21
Okay, new rule. Only do yoga at an actual yoga studio. The gym’s yoga classes are the worst. They are mostly taught by fitness instructors who play music too loud (with lyrics?!! Wtf?) and bark instructions at you.
January 22
Travel Day: I thought my new Away travel bag would change my life and it 100% did.
January 23
Tenerife is sunny and that is about the only positive thing I can think to say about it. I walked for hours in the sunshine. I have sand in my hair. I forgot my kindle at home, but thankfully found a used bookstore. I picked up Sisterland by Curtis Sittenfeld and Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson.
January 24
More walking for hours in the sun. After I’d listened to every podcast ever recorded and finished all the audiobooks in my library, I realised that one of my words for 2024 was connection and yet I chose to go on a solo trip to an island in the middle of nowhere.
January 25
I walked for miles along the beach. I read books. I watched the sunset until the sands from Africa started blowing and swirling and smacking me in the face. Then I went back to my dingy hotel and made a cup of tea.
January 26
Travel day. Why does every taxi (outside London) smell like air-freshener and sound like a nightclub?
January 27
Sick.
January 28
Still sick. Not happy.
January 29
You know the old adage that you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with? I feel like I bring down the average of every circle I’m part of.
January 30
I’ve re-entered society and will work the rest of the week from Kindred. Just getting dressed up and doing my hair and make-up has helped. But mainly, this: dinner with a friend who swept up all the shattered pieces of my self-confidence and glued me back together again.
January 31
Attended a networking event with Women in Film and Television and met so many inspiring, creative women. I was only there for two hours and met a director, a showrunner, a composer, an actor, a writer and a production designer. How do I do more of this kind of thing?
Something that happened today
Guy at the cafe: What do you do?
Me: I’m writing a book.
Guy: What genre?
Me: Creative Nonfiction.
Guy: Does that mean you are creative with the facts?
Me. Yes.
Let's talk about Literary Salons
Sylvia Beach and James Joyce
I went through a phase where I read just about anything I could find set in 1920s Paris. The Sun Also Rises, of course, and A Moveable Feast and Tender is the Night.…
But if I’m honest (and what’s the point otherwise?), I preferred the more recent novels written from the woman’s perspective. Some of my favourites:
In any case: Literary Salons. Like a party, but more interesting. Where writers, artists and thinkers engage in stimulating conversation, not small talk.
A replica of Gertrude Stein’s apartment. Courtesy of Salon de Fleurus and Messy Nessy.
Check out this retrospective of artists living in 1920s Paris.
Gertrude Stein was, by all accounts, the hostess with the mostest and her guests came bearing gifts. Decades later, her apartment was dubbed “the first museum of modern art” as it was filled with Picasso’s, Cezanne’s and the like.
I’m sure I have an overly romantic notion of those salons. Hemingway, in particular, must have been an insufferable blowhard. But still, I love the concept of gathering for the express purpose of discussing books, or art, or something. Really, anything besides the weather and school applications.
I don’t have the chutzpah to host a literary salon (yet!), but I’m working up the courage while reading this book: The Art of the Gathering by Priya Parker.
Gift from the Sea
Apparently yesterday was world introvert day, which I didn’t realise because I spent 10 hours writing in my journal and planning the solo trip to Tenerife I’m taking later this month.
Young mothers, I hear your envious groans. Don’t worry! Your time will come. I’ve been where you are and couldn’t imagine peeing alone, much less taking a solo trip to the beach. For now, just read this book: A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, better known as the wife of Charles Lindbergh.
Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Gift from the Sea was published in 1955 but it could’ve been written yesterday. It reminds us that the rhythms of life ebb and flow. We are social creatures who need time alone.
Here’s another gem:
The most exhausting thing in life, I have discovered, is being insincere. That is why so much of social life is exhausting; one is wearing a mask. [When I am alone] I have shed my mask.
— Anne Morrow Lindbergh
And this one:
Don't wish me happiness. I don't expect to be happy all the time... It's gotton beyond that somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor. I will need them all.
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh
In any case, your time is coming, my friend.
Until then, Happy World Introvert Day from Letters of Note.
xo, L
The Opposite is Also True
A woman’s pursuit:
To demand excellence from yourself
but not be demanding of others.
To dream big but
be happy where you are.
To feel big and
to feel small.
Chances are,
your bigness is underdeveloped.
Too full of the truth
“Darling, you feel heavy because you are too full of the truth. Open your mouth more. Let the truth exist somewhere other than inside your body.”
- Della Hicks-Wilson
The Practice of Shipping Creative Work
Some takeaways from Seth Godin’s book.
Reminder: A writer puts words on a page. An author has a point of view.
And this: My heart is not for sale. What I aim to do is to create a piece of work that might help or entertain or inspire. I’m telling a story. I’m not reciting the Walter Cronkite version of my life.
Reduce decision fatigue.
We become what we do. We don’t ship the work because we’re creative. We’re creative because we ship the work. Saturday Night Live goes on at 11:30pm - not because the show is ready but because it’s 11:30pm.
Understand that a non-fiction book is a souvenir. It’s just a vessel for the ideas. You don’t want the ideas to be stuck in the book. You want the ideas to spread. Which means you should share them. The more you give away, the better you will do.
Generosity is the easiest way around resistance. Write for someone else and send it to them.
Type when you’re not inspired. The typing will turn into writing and then you’ll be inspired.
Mis en place. Set boundaries, prepare your tools and do the work. No drama. Chop wood, carry water.
Flow is the result of effort. The muse shows up when we do the work, not the other way around.
Ship the work. Improve.
Transfiguration
Today’s poem was written just for me. (And every other woman I know, but mostly me.)
**
Transfiguration
by Kate Baer
I dreamt myself into a mother,
but when I became her, I had to
dream her back into a woman
back into a woman
back into a woman
again.
Heavy by Mary Oliver
Luke Knight, We sit and watch. via The Auction Collective
Heavy
by Mary Oliver
That time
I thought I could not
go any closer to grief
without dying
I went closer,
and I did not die.
Surely God
had his hand in this,
as well as friends.
Still, I was bent,
and my laughter,
as the poet said,
was nowhere to be found.
Then said my friend Daniel
(brave even among lions),
“It is not the weight you carry
but how you carry it—
books, bricks, grief—
it’s all in the way
you embrace it, balance it, carry it
when you cannot, and would not,
put it down.”
So I went practicing.
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
How I linger
to admire, admire, admire
the things of this world
that are kind, and maybe
also troubled—
roses in the wind,
The sea geese on the steep waves,
a love
to which there is no reply?
For the Love of Dogs
Pasaba Por Alli, Tomasa Martin via Saatchi Art
“Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly anxious or low or shameful, I just press my head into my dog’s belly and listen to her heartbeat. She sleeps so soundly, so entirely and her heart is so steady, it makes me feel fixed. She’s taught me, through our almost eleven years of living together, to not take myself so seriously all the time. About five years ago I realized that when I look at her, I immediately smile, and I wondered what would happen if I did that for myself. If I smiled at myself when I looked into the mirror. I do it all the time now and let me tell you, it is life changing.” - Ada Limon, The Slowdown.
Carole Robertson
Carole Robertson
by Carole Boston Weatherford
Carole Robertston,
Who loved books, earned straight A's,
And took dance lessons every Saturday.
Who joined the Girl Scouts and science club
And played clarinet in the high school band.
A member of Jack and Jill of America.
Carole, who thought she might want
To teach history someday
Or at least make her mark on it.
Carole Rosamond Robertson was one of the four young girls killed in the KKK bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham on 15 September 1963.
Covid Days
Art: Philip Geiger
“And then it is another day and another and another, but I will not go on about this because no doubt you too have experienced time.”
Roadtrips
How I Learned Bliss
by Oliver De La Paz
I spied everything. The North Dakota license,
the “Baby on Board” signs, dead raccoons, and deer carcasses.
The Garfields clinging to car windows—the musky traces of old coffee.
I was single-minded in the buzz saw tour I took through
the flatlands of the country to get home. I just wanted to get there.
Never mind the antecedent. I had lost stations miles ago
and was living on cassettes and caffeine. Ahead, brushstrokes
of smoke from annual fires. Only ahead to the last days of summer
and to the dying theme of youth. How pitch-perfect
the tire-on-shoulder sound was to mask the hiss of the tape deck ribbons.
Everything. Perfect. As Wyoming collapses over the car
like a wave. And then another mile marker. Another.
How can I say this more clearly? It was like opening a heavy book,
letting the pages feather themselves and finding a dried flower.
Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin, LA Times
I was decluttering my office this week and stubbled upon an old copy of The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume Two. It happens to be a well-loved library book that has been with me for three decades and as many countries. I’m not even sure how I ended up with a library book from a state I’ve never lived in (?) but somewhere along the line it became mine and has survived the various edits I’ve made to my library over the years.
And yet, I don’t remember having read it. Why do I keep it? I’m not sure. But a clue is the post it note I found stuck in the middle with this quote:
- Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.
Today's poem is by Anaïs Nin. It’s brief and to the point - and I think good way to kickstart the new year.
Risk
by Anaïs Nin
And then the day came,
when the risk
to remain tight
in a bud
was more painful
than the risk
it took
to blossom.
Perhaps the World Ends Here
Carrie Mae Weems - Untitled, from The Kitchen Table Series, 1990
Perhaps the World Ends Here
by Joy Harjo
The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.
Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.
You Are Here To Risk It All
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.
- Louise Erdich, The Painted Drum