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My Trade Is a Mystery

Mandy of A Working Library wrote about this book here.

The seven essays have strong titles.

I particularly loved this passage about keeping a journal.

In this regard, though I’ve never myself been one to keep a journal, a journal is definitely a good way of committing to a routine practice of putting words on a page. As I understand it, journaling just means recording our thoughts at the time, whatever highlights of a given day, the weather. The point here is a physical and mental engagement with the act of writing, until the joining of thought and writing becomes instinctive, and in turn to write becomes conducive to think- ing, becomes both a catalyst for curiosity and the medium by which curiosity extends itself like light—but somehow more physical than light—into the so-called darkness of what’s yet to be stumbled upon, what we call discovery.

Notice the way that it starts totally straight, and then flies off in to poetry. That long rambly last sentence just takes off in to art.

Reading, writing, discipline — is that it, then? I’ve left for last the most imporant and obvious part of any writing practice: living one’s life attentively.

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Published: May 1, 2024

Last Modified: Jul 11, 2024

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