bits and bobs

A great New Year's message, from me to you, or rather from Pico Iyer to me, to you:

OPINION | January 01, 2012
Opinion: The Joy of Quiet
By PICO IYER
Trying to escape the constant stream of too much information.

And a dramatic bit of advice from an on-line writer, about writing:

Writing a first draft is like hitting the beach on D-Day. You don't stop to tend the wounded or mourn the dead. If you don't get off the beach, you'll die there. Which means: the point of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written. Don't go back and rewrite the first chapter until you've finished the last. Get off the beach. Otherwise, you may never get past page twenty.