mary_j_59

Those of you who are also his friends will know that Jon Gibbs is quite a guy! He is selling these mugs along with his ebook on CD, and I would urge all of you who write to get one.* Because it's true. If you write, you are a writer. You don't have to wait for anyone else to validate you; you don't have to be published (though that sure would be nice!); you don't have to be a bestseller. All you have to do is write. So give yourself a boost and remember: if you write, you are a writer. It doesn't matter how the world defines you.

*(or whatever creative thing you do, as Brenda Ueland says. It's all good!)

A couple of other things: The colors are really glorious now here in Southern NY. The maples are any number of shades between pale yellow green and scarlet, and the cork bushes and sumac and poison ivy (yes, poison ivy. One wonders why it's so pretty) are deep crimson. When driving back from a meeting, my sister and I saw a nut or oak tree (probably an oak) with purply-brown leaves. You wouldn't think all these colors could look so lovely together, but they do.

And my sister and I just saw How to Train Your Dragon It's an utterly charming movie, but nothing at all like the book - which is also utterly charming. I'm not sure I don't like the movie even more than the book. The one thing I didn't like was the boys' voices; they were all played by older boys or men whose voices had changed, and that didn't feel right to me.

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