We’re lucky to be writers. Nobody owes us anything.

Project Runway Season 5 is shaping up to be awesome, even if it is on Lifetime.

Interesting review of Rebecca Solnit's "A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster":  "Our response to disaster gives us nothing less than 'a glimpse of who else we ourselves may be and what else our society could become.'  Her overarching thesis can probably be boiled down to this sentence: 'The recovery of this purpose and closeness without crisis or pressure' — without disaster, that is — 'is the great contemporary task of being human.'

And now, the main event (thanks to charlesatan for linking to this essay):

"Why I Write" by Stephen Elliott (whom I've never read):

I still go through heavy bouts of depression; it’s my nature. But I wouldn’t choose a different life. Time spent focusing on art is a privilege and a gift. The writing doesn’t make me happy, but it makes me happier, and it makes everything else easier to take.

When I got to know other writers I was surprised, but also comforted, to find that they were often as messed up as I was—especially fiction writers. They were just as insecure and obsessive. They went through periods of gigantic confidence when they felt like they could do anything, then slipped into cavernous depressions when they wondered if they had anything of value to say. It didn’t matter how successful they were. They wasted time, berated themselves mercilessly. Most of us have something wrong at our core. If we didn’t, we would write for television, where the standards are lower and the money is better and they throw bigger parties. But we want to create something good, and we want our names on it. Our creativity is our Nile flowing through us, all of our nourishment blossoming along its banks.

The hell with it, let’s take this metaphor one step further. It’s easy to forget the river, take it for granted. Like parents who love you no matter what, you don’t miss them till they’re gone. You might want to think before wandering away from the source of your inspiration. You might think you need things you don’t; you might think there’s something greater over the next berm, only to cross into a long desert.

But here’s the good news: The river is always there. You can always return, but getting back might require covering the same distance and take as long as the time you’ve spent away.