I'll know coffee works without cream and sugar when I see people buying unsweetened bakers chocolate for Valentine's Day.
I'm not a purist. Coffee drinking minus cream and sugar is an acquired taste. I'm still not sure it isn't like telling chefs to dispense with spices in cooking.
Hanging laundry on a line is a very ordinary task. It is as ordinary as scraped knees and lost keys, as fixing the same simple dish for supper again, and again. Ordinary is most days, and Lord helps is if we overlook them.
Space is a precious thing to waste. You don't want to fill your house with anything that doesn't directly add to your happiness.
He must shape simultaneously (in an expanding creative moment) his characters, plot, and setting, each inextricably connected to the others; he must make his whole world in a single, coherent gesture, as a potter makes a pot...
I don't assume, because I can write screenplays, that I know how to write a novel. It's a very different world. There's a craft involved in storytelling, and it's a different kind of craft. But yes, someday I will do that. It just might be awhile.
Even in making objects, as soon as you start to get the feeling that some form of craft is coming into place, you realize that everything is wrong. Because craft is really just a fetish. It is wasted energy. It's about the object, some space which ha...
On Holy Saturday I do my best to live in that place, that wax-crayon place of trust and waiting. Of accepting what I cannot know. Of mourning what needs to be mourned. Of accepting what needs to be accepted. Of hoping for what seems impossible.
Most people would say they love animals, but the reality is, if your using animals for food, clothing, or entertainment, you're only considering the lives of certain animals, typically those of cats and dogs.
I like arts and crafts.
In writing, there is art. And in art there is craft ...
In writing there is art - and in art there is craft ...
The actual business of writing dialogue is not thought of as a craft.
Glitter is the herpes of craft supplies.
Filmmaking is a real craft.
Craft can be practiced by anyone, regardless of the skill or artistry that has come to be demanded by those who preach craft. Like a good meal, a good Crafternoon shouldn't need much - a few quality ingredients, a couple of good friends, and a little...
People assume because I'm a coffee expert I drink lots of coffee. I can't. It takes me half an hour to brew my perfect cup. Do the math. I simply don't have time to drink more.
I am reminded that every day I have the chance to pick up a needle and some thread and add to the story. To stitch together something beautiful and unique, to patch a small scrap of fabric to the story, to the Story of God, that will be retold again ...
Confession: Having kids did not fix me. I was not somehow more whole, less botched-up, or more certain just because I had a kid... I was still me, with all my holes and problems and questions - only now I was also exhuasted and had a lot more laundry...
Collaborative workshops and writers' peer groups hadn't been invented when I was young. They're a wonderful invention. They put the writer into a community of people all working at the same art, the kind of group musicians and painters and dancers ha...
We're still family-owned, which keeps life a whole lot simpler. When my wife and kids and I decide to make a business move, we don't have to ask Wall Street about it.
