Streeeetching yourself
Oh, hi friends!
I’m spending a few days covering the Women in the World Summit at Lincoln Center.
It’s an incredible event founded by my former boss Tina Brown, and beyond always walking away feeling inspired—and full from endless bags of chips consumed in the basement while typing like a maniac—it also helps me remember what it’s like to feed off a very busy and deadline-driven environment. (I’ll be watching panels featuring Margaret Atwood, Diane von Furstenberg, and many others, writing and filing stories all the while. Last night I wrote about the magnificent Viola Davis. You should watch the live-stream today!)
WITW, as we call it, always reminds me that, oh yes, I do have the ability to write 3,000 words in a day. To consume and write and edit and keep going. I can jump back into that pace. (And then sleep a lot when it’s over.)
And that’s an essential guidepost, I think. To have those events or work projects that really stretch you. You remember your capacity—and in reaching the end of that capacity, perhaps expand it even more for next time.
“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy to finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one area where I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter, and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
I’ve read exactly four pages of a single Harry Potter book, but I can listen to J.K. Rowling’s advice all day.
She directed all her energy to finishing the only work that mattered to her.
Taken from her Harvard commencement speech. (h/t James Clear)
Absolutely fantastic. Every storefront should take a cue from this tire store! Best PR ever. This Woman Wrote Her Novel At A Tire Store And Now They Are Her Biggest Fans. (h/t Nina Semczuk) This reminds me that Diablo Cody wrote the script for Juno sitting at a Target food court, a story that I was obsessed with in college and which always made me want to write at a Target food court.
This weekend, get yourself to Egg House! The Internet is losing its mind over this new interactive pop-up museum all about eggs in the Lower East Side. My friend Helen Shao is coming to town just to check it out. Get your tickets before the Instagram hordes descend.
This Portugal Yoga and Surfing Retreat in May, led by my friend Melissa Smith, looks like a dream.
WNYC is looking for a Marketing Project Coordinator! (h/t Carl Zurhost)
Loved this: Five takeaways from Questlove’s new book on creativity by Scott Kirkwood. Especially this bit about starting with the end in mind: “Earlier in his career, before starting work on a Roots album, Quest would imagine the eventual Rolling Stone cover and the five-star review he hoped to receive. He’d even lay out the review on a sheet of paper and sketch an illustration to go along with it.”
And if you’re in New York Sunday night and jonesing for some free theater, join me for a fun night of monologues, featuring my latest monologue called “Kidnapping Oprah.” It’s at Cherry Lane Theatre in the West Village at 7pm. Let me know if you’d like to go and I’ll reserve you a seat!
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara