A wonderful piece in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times.

Did anyone see Larry King Live last night with Michelle Obama? I liked her–very much, actually. She said something I so agreed with, and it’s that if Obama was elected, the world would look at the U.S. so differently. So very differently.

I just visited his web site and donated.

So, who’re y’all for, and why?

One of the major perks of getting my book published is meeting nice people, many via email.

Here’s one blog started on account of my book. The woman who started it says my book not only changed the way she writes, it’s changed her life.

So gratifying…..

Poems

Billy Collins’ Litany. Man.

Robert Creeley’s The Rain. Listen to the reading. Slays me.

Christina Rosetti’s Echo

Sharon Olds’ I Go Back to May 1937

Oh, and The Lanyard by Billy Collins.

happy valentine’s day!

I was starting to ask the question, “Do distractions take anyone else away from writing like they do me?” and then I deleted it. Of course they do! Distractions are the bane of a writer’s life. Health and money distractions are the worst. How can you argue with someone to write when they have pressing concerns? You can’t. Although I have one friend who’s having trouble at home and she finds that the more she has trouble, the more she is obsessed with writing.

How nice! I said.

Nice? she said.

Yes, nice! You’re writing!

Oh, well, I guess I am, she said.

The last couple of weeks for me have been a bit nerve-racking. Waiting for results to medical tests (everything’s fine, it seems). But the waiting has been very distracting. So distracting, in fact, that I’ve done so little on my novel. Other work, yes. But fiction, no. Thinking about it, planning, plotting–yes. Writing–no.

What a waste.

When I’m distracted in that way, I do other things. Work I have to do, and I knit. I knit so much in the last couple of weeks that my thumbs hurt.

I think of writers I know who’ve encountered terrifically difficult challenges and got their writing done anyway. One such writer will be on my show tomorrow–T. Jefferson Parker.

What about all of you out there? Time to stop lurking. Post here. Tell me (us) what you do when faced with health and money distractions.

I have at least one blog reader who is a terror at letting me know when it’s time to post again or berates me (lovingly, I hope!) for letting too many days go by without posting.

So here’s something new, and hopefully not too terribly self-promoting: an interview by Sujatha Samy-Randy, a journalism student from France. We talked recently by telephone. Listening to her lovely French accent and soft timbre, I very much wanted to go to Europe–again.

You should come here, she said. You would like it.

I might never leave, I said.