ON TATTOOS

Advice from an older guy--don't get a tattoo till you've gotten past your youth 'cause your likely to choose one that's popular at the time, but will seem really weird in a few years. What's popular today may be very unpopular in the near future (Charlie Sheen, Vampires, etc.). I'm bringing this up because I just got my first tattoo yesterday for a VERY big birthday and it took a lot of thinking. I chose a design of a cave painting in Lascaux, France. It's lasted 20,000 years, so I think it has staying power.

First Drafts

To paraphrase from Anne Lamott's "Bird by Bird" --

Writers don't bound along huskies writing great prose, they all begin by writing really, really shitty first drafts. It's a messy, but necessary, step in getting to that great prose.