The nice thing about having a friend who is crazier than you are is that she bolsters your belief in your own sanity.

Two years ago, I was a twenty-nine year old secretary. Now I am a thirty-one year old writer. I get paid very well to sit around in my pajamas and type on my ridiculously fancy iMac, unless I'd rather take a nap. Feel free to hate me -- I certainly would.

There, I was just a secretary-shaped confederation of atoms, fighting the inevitability of mediocrity and decay. But here, in the Juliaverse... energy was never lost, merely converted from one form to another. Here, I took butter and cream and meat and eggs and I made delicious sustenance.

Nowadays anyone with a crap laptop and an Internet connection can sound their barbaric yawp, whatever it may be.

People want to care about people. People look after each other, given the chance. ... I believe just believing in goodness generates a tiny bit of the stuff, so that being so foolish as to believe in our better natures, if just for a day, we actually contribute to the sum total of generosity in the universe.

You can never have too much, butter.

The blog is certainly another tool for writers out there to break their way in. But being a blogger does not make you a great writer.