{"id":524,"date":"2005-09-24T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-24T21:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=524"},"modified":"2005-09-24T21:50:00","modified_gmt":"2005-09-24T21:50:00","slug":"524","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=524","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

The Writing Life<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was an undergraduate at “Reed’s Fine College<\/a>,” someone dropped a piece of wisdom on me that ran more or less like this: “First-rate writers lead second-rate lives, while second-rate writers lead first-rate lives.”<\/p>\n

I did not want to hear it at the time. I wanted to be colorful and unique and sexually desirable and all that. Later, I started to think that there might be something to it. Your energy is finite. You can put it into your real work<\/em> (to borrow Gary Snyder’s phrase<\/a>), or you can put it into something else.<\/p>\n

The author of the Outer Life blog has some thoughts on the matter too<\/a>. I think that I will be adding him to the blogroll–I have been reading Outer Life for more than a year now, and it is one of the best-written diarist blogs that I have found.<\/p>\n

Tag: Writing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Writing Life When I was an undergraduate at “Reed’s Fine College,” someone dropped a piece of wisdom on me that ran more or less like this: “First-rate writers lead second-rate lives, while second-rate writers lead first-rate lives.” I did not want to hear it at the time. I wanted to be colorful and unique […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-524","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":142,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=142","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":0},"title":"Next, the Associated Press Stylebook\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Next, the Associated Press Stylebook Wren at Witches' Voice posts an item about a student Pagan group meeting in a Kentucky high school, much to the surprise of administrators. But here is the interesting part: the reporter's last paragraph explaining what Paganism is. In fact, he repeats the Pagan \"party\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3589,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3589","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":1},"title":"Should Paganized Yule Carols Be Encouraged?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Evangelical Christians are always swiping slogans and memes from media or popular culture and Christ-fying them. On the Baptist Church signboard that I pass on the way into Pueblo, I have seen \"Got Jesus?\"\u2014an obvious steal from the dairy industry's \"Got milk?\" campaign. Here are more examples of \"Christ-ification.\" (\"Got\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":49,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=49","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":2},"title":"Bone Walker","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 5, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"I have just finished Bone Walker, by the prolific Kathleen O'Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear, last in a series of novels set among the Anasazi people of the Southwest in about the 13th century. It is the third of a series, actually, and in the words of the authors'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1830,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1830","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":3},"title":"Equinoctal Musings","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"According to the cosmic clock, I must have experienced the fall equinox about the time that I checked into the Trade Winds Motel in Valentine, Nebraska, last Wednesday evening. The next day I would be driving through miles of the Sandhills, the climax prairie ecosystem, homeward bound from the annual\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"festivals\"","block_context":{"text":"festivals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=festivals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1057,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1057","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":4},"title":"Polytheism and Punctuation","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 4, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you seen the new ads for Gillette's Venus-brand razors? Do you think some copywriter once read some classic of pop-psychological polytheism, such as Goddesses in Everywoman: Powerful Archetypes in Women's Lives?Or perhaps more amazingly, what if someone read Pagan Meditations: The Worlds of Aphrodite, Artemis, and Hestia?Gods below! Polytheistic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"polytheism\"","block_context":{"text":"polytheism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=polytheism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4492,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4492","url_meta":{"origin":524,"position":5},"title":"Data-Mining and Student Success","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education discusses using data-mining techniques for better student advising. One way to ensure that students will reach the finish line is to quickly figure out if they've selected a suitable track. So the Arizona State system front-loads key courses. For example, to succeed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}