stop crying your heart out

The very worst days of my life were also the very best. Being miserable and exhilarated at the same time. Standing on the of corner of Princess Street, looking up at a sky that tried to be light but couldn’t and thinking “This is you, all by yourself…and every bit of it is wonderful.”

Oasis always reminds me of those early days in Manchester, when I first kicked off the hills and became myself.

contemplating wordsworth

And I have felt a presence that disturbs me
with the joy of elevated thoughts;
a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things

Wordsworth, from Tintern Abbey

finding your voice

The most difficult task facing a writer is to find a voice in which to tell the story. To be heard, you must find a voice. For your ideas to be accepted, for your arguments to be believed, for your work to be admired, you must find a voice. Each of you is an original. Each of you has a distinctive voice. When you find it, your story will be told. You will be heard.

~John Grisham

discovering einstein’s god

I read something the other day by John Polkinghorne. I wont get into the obvious debate re: physicists-turned-priests or things like the Templeton prize, and I’m not suggesting, by mentioning Polkinghorne, that he and Einstein held similar philosophies.

But I do want to share this program by Krista Tippett, DISCOVERING EINSTEIN’S GOD. In it, Tippett discusses a complimentary way of looking at the world and the order deeply hidden behind everything.

I’ve written about it before…

lost

I had this dream. I was being proposed to. In my high school gymnasium. It was all a bit unsettling. Like dreams sometimes are. Before you realize they’re dreams. And my suitor, my suitor says “Buffy, will you marry me?”

Before I can say ‘what’, before I can say ‘huh?’, this really hard-knocks, city centre priest shows up on the court. He speaks to my suitor. And I am shook.

“Good Grief,” he says. “Are you crazy, boy? Why does everyone insist on playing house these days? Why does everyone insist on getting married? Don’t do that.”

That’s what he says. This crazy priest. I’ve seen him before. I trust him implicitly. Father knows best.

“You’re right,” is all he says. Is all my suitor says. And then he leaves, just like that, and I am lost. Curled up in some big ball of separateness and floating in space. I feel like a star. Burnt out and collapsing in on itself.

Someone leads me away. I’m not part of the world I’m in. The world is a cafeteria now. Now, someone is feeding me chips.

My phone. It’s my life line. And when it rings, I think it’s him. And even though I have nothing to say, I listen anyway.

It’s Steph. My darling Steph. She is love. And she is comfort.

“Did he tell you what he did to me?” I think it. And don’t know if I say it.

“Yes. It’s so sad. He sounded so different.”

And that was it. I woke up. It probably wasn’t immediately. It probably was six hours later. But it felt like immediately. Immediately. And I still felt lost.

forbes: highest earning authors

According to Forbes, 1 in every 17 novels sold in the US is written by this man, making him the highest paid author in the world.

James Patterson writes about eight books a year. He works with a team of collaborators on everything from children’s books to thrillers and makes his publisher, The Hachette Book Group, about a half billion dollars a year.

Even though he only pocketed a measly $70m over the last six months, this is more than enough to bump him to the top of Forbes Highest Earning Authors list.

Patterson is a former copywriter and says he works on his novels seven days a week, starting every day at around 5.30am and writing everything in longhand.

“I’m certainly not a world-class stylist. But the storytelling is pretty cool, and the narrative power of the stuff is usually pretty strong,” he told the Guardian two years ago. “These books are entertainments. It’s a very different process than if you’re trying to write Moby-Dick, or The Corrections. That’s painful. That’s different from very simple, plot-oriented storytelling. If I was writing serious fiction, I’d want more rest time.”

The last time Forbes published the list, in 2008, JK Rowling was on top having earned $300 million. The Harry Potter Authoress is now at #10 despite publishing no new novel this year.

I don’t remember where Nora Roberts fell in the 2008 roundup. But I do remember that was the first time I had ever heard of her. She’s absent from the list this year. Even though I’ve only read one of his books (The Notebook) I’ve always known about Nicholas Sparks, who chimes in this year at #9, because he’s been blogging since before blogging began, more or less, and was one of the reasons I took it up myself.

Team Edward/Jacob notwithstanding, Patterson earned almost double the amount earned by Stephenie Meyer. Meyer’s a newbie to the list but still comes in at #2, earning $40m over the period (January 1-June 1, 2010), selling 40m copies of her Twilight vampire series in the US and 100m worldwide.

The top 10 in full is:

1. James Patterson ($70m)
2. Stephenie Meyer ($40m)
3. Stephen King ($34m)
4. Danielle Steel ($32m)
5. Ken Follett ($20m)
6. Dean Koontz ($18m)
7. Janet Evanovich ($16m)
8. John Grisham ($15m)
9. Nicholas Sparks ($14m)
10. JK Rowling ($10m)