Sally Lloyd-Jones's Blog, page 17

reading a book

OK I just completely love this and am now singing it all around my apt...



actually, i'm going to make it "writing a book" and use it to fend off those dysfunctional relatives that Ann Lamott talks about who pull up their chairs in a semi-circle behind you whenever you dare to sit down to write and breathe on you their coppery breath... (Ann Lamott in Bird By Bird in case you haven't read this life-saving book)



OH and PSjust updated my website featuring my extra exciting most new book: HOW TO GET A JOB BY ME THE BOSS (written by that same 6-year old narrator who brought you HOW TO BE A BABY and HOW TO GET MARRIED). there are some never before heard of tips which makes it a MUST HAVE...



Plus the new extra wondrous JESUS STORYBOOK BIBLE LARGE FORMAT EDITION (exactly the same only larger--and with a reader's ribbon)



now be quietcan't you see? I'm writing a book....

60 year old mother

Albatross

via NYT

she's the oldest wild bird in the USand she's a new mother

she's very good for her age isn't she?plus she has a good name: Wisdom

plus here are some Albatross facts for a wednesday:they lay one egg a yearthey have about 35 babies in their lifetimethey often take a year off from parenting (see above)

How To Smile

via NYT

When I was taking a French conversation class at the Alliance Francaise a couple of years ago one of the most interesting things I learned from my wonderful French French teacher (aside from the language) was that the French don't smile. 

At least not the way Americans do.

And in fact if you smile at them as you pass them on the street, you creep them out.

This seems like an essential thing to know before visiting France. How had I never heard this before? (Had I known this, clearly my French speaking career might well have taken off.)

This NYT article is all about smiling and lips and teeth and faces. But here's the quote that leaped out at me about the not smiling/smiling thing:

"So you know," the Russian reporter informed Paula Niedenthal, "that American smiles are all false, and French smiles are all true."

abstract dunes

Evelyn Hockstein for The New York Times
via NYT

Sand dunes along the coast near Swakopmund, Namibia

Utopian building

The entire text of Sir Thomas More's UTOPIA written by an artist on an old building in Norwich.

via NYT
photograph: Jonathan Player

owl snob

you don't need more time

"You don't need more time... you just need to decide" 
Seth Godin

This quote rescued me the other day. 

For the past 6 months, I've been working on a longer book (well longer for me--around 15,000 words). I was nearing the end of the (frightful) first draft and experiencing Writer Whiplash--where one minute your manuscript is great only to discover the next that it's been nothing but appalling drivel all along. 

As I was going over the text and deciding what was good and what wasn't, what stays/what goes, the anxiety was building and I was dithering and beginning to unravel everything. Like unknitting your knitting (not that I knit but you get the picture).  I felt I wouldn't ever finish. That I needed more time. That if only I had more time...

When this quote landed in my inbox.

"You don't need more time... you just need to decide." 

It stopped the unraveling and the self-doubt in their tracks. It unstuck me from my perfectionism bog. And freed me to... (as Nike says)... just do it.

What do you need to decide?

 

large trim JSB!

it's here!

twice the size twice as good!(with a reader's ribbon and made specially for reading in a group setting)

when i saw it i felt like--why wasn't it always like this--it is so GORGEOUS!

more here (for US)more here (for UK)

Posted via email from jsb

as a farewell to snow (I love you but it's time, no?)

a sweet parting...
a glorious snowy stormy scene...

painting: "Snow Storm--Steam Boat Off a Harbor's Mouth Making Signals in Shallow Water" (1842) Turner

cables running riot ((publish on: 03/14/11))

"You can precipitate my problems with cables by simply calling me. There is a 50 percent chance that you will be greeted by the sound of my desk set banging against a radiator, because the spiral cord of my phone keeps tangling and assembling itself into a compact ball. Why? Am I unconsciously rotating or dancing while talking on the phone?"

Christoph Nieman, Abstract City (NYT)

more here

See the full gallery on posterous