1. There is no shame in writing slow. Your writing takes as long to develop as it takes. Writing is not a race. There is something very seductive about slow writing, about the care being given to the words when the writing happens at a more languorous pace. This is not to say fast writers don’t…
locked.
Some great stuff in this article from The Atlantic about the differing career paths of men and women in the academic professions. In particular, married men progress significantly faster than married women. This matches my experience. As the article rightly concludes, the academic professions are still very much structured on the assumption that there is a stay-at-home wife in the background playing a supporting role. For women who are married to men with professional aspirations of their own, the career path is much less clear, frequently interrupted, and often ends altogether.
David Carr, media columnist for the New York Times, via yesterday’s Reddit IAmA. (via futurejournalismproject)
Good Talk.
low tide.
Last night’s sunset. So shiny.
Somehow I wandered away from the keyboard for a week or so, which is both good and bad. It’s like riding the bike. Sometimes you need a rest, but you know you’ll suffer when it’s time to come back. You blow up over the first climb. You delete more sentences than you keep. That’s just how it is.
Reading helps refill the word bag, but there’s no substitute for sitting in front of the blank screen and trying to fill it. If I write about reading, will that make it easier? Maybe.
Graduate school put a premium on reading quickly. Each week, each seminar required at least one book and many times, more than one. Faced with a Ventoux of words, I learned to turn over the pages as quickly as possible.
Since then, I have relearned the practice of slow reading. Some books deserve to be savored. The recently released Cycling Anthology is a book for slow reading. Pour a coffee and dip into a chapter. The volume collects a series of essays by writers who know their way around the sport. A second volume devoted to the Tour is due in May. I’m already counting the days.
St. Babs, yesterday.
