So the end may be a long time coming, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have a way of sneaking up on you.

Sometimes, if you want to be happy, you've got to run away to Bath and marry a punk rocker. Sometimes you've got to dye your hair cobalt blue, or wander remote islands in Sicily, or cook your way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, for no very good reason.

Doors are going to open-doors you can't even imagine exist.

Metz's Perfection chronicles with lapidary precision one woman's climb back to happiness after not just a spouse's death, but also the shocking recognition that her life before that death was not what she had thought it was. The journey is a painful one, but Ms. Metz is much the stronger for having survived to recount it.

I got my undergrad in Creative Writing, and then I didn't get my Masters in obsession, because I figured I already had that covered.

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.

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.