I don’t trust people that don’t like kids and I don’t completely trust myself to have them. On the off chance we do have

It’s important that I feel like a little spoon at all times, which requires at least a five-inch height difference. This will allow me to gain a bit of weight (something I can do but you probably shouldn’t) and still feel small in comparison.

On a scale of Rihanna’s “Only Girl (In the World)” to Rihanna’s “Work,” you better make me work, work, work, work, work for your love and attention. I don’t make the rules. My years of unexamined attachment issues do.

We don’t believe in God in this relationship, but we do believe in generational guilt, brisket, and saying “Did you know that he/she is Jewish?” every time a member of the tribe makes an appearance on our television screen.

When I start working on a story or book, I am absolutely enflamed with certainty about it — I am convinced that it absolutely has to be written. More precisely, I am convinced that I have to write it, right away. I don’t know where I find that confidence, but I know I’m lucky to have it, and I honestly don’t think I could write these things if I weren’t entirely sure of them. I’m sure that when I approach editors and I pitch the story with that kind of certainty, it overrides whatever doubts they might have about the subject. Did The New Yorker need a story about taxidermy? No, but when I first heard about the World Taxidermy Championship, I knew I had to write about it, and I approached my editor with fierce determination, and I think I simply bowled him over with my resolve and optimism about it.

We should be in the same bracket of hotness, but I’m above you (not height-wise — see expectation #2). Your friends should think “wow, how did you land such a beautiful girl?” while still recognizing that our attractiveness levels are fairly compatible. Make sense?

A lot about writing is hard. Starting a piece is hard. Ending a piece is hard. Doing research can be tough. Figuring out a structure for a story is nearly impossible. The one thing I’ve always found easy is finding the confidence that the story was worthwhile and that it was important to write it.

http://molos.bodasturias.com/qxz/v-ideos-valenciennes-v-nancy-v-fr-fr-1ose-11.php

http://old.cocir.org/media/cla/videos-marbella-v-real-valladolid-v-es-es-1djk-21.php

http://startup.munich.es/dyn/videos-Mansfield-Salford-v-en-gb-1jwx-7.php

http://team.vidrio.org/xpy/videos-Clermont-Foot-63-Grenoble-v-en-gb-1uba30122020-8.php

http://main.ruicasa.com/xrk/video-Sochaux-Dunkerque-v-en-gb-1vdf-9.php

http://molos.bodasturias.com/qxz/video-valenciennes-v-nancy-v-fr-fr-1hpc-8.php

http://www.ectp.org/kzz/Video-Linares-Deportivo-Sevilla-v-en-gb-1nnl-24.php

http://old.cocir.org/media/cla/Video-marbella-v-real-valladolid-v-es-es-1hrh-24.php

http://molos.bodasturias.com/qxz/v-ideos-valenciennes-v-nancy-v-fr-fr-1pfa-7.php

http://startup.munich.es/dyn/videos-Mansfield-Salford-v-en-gb-1vpi-9.php

od news for anyone facing this dilemma is that despite the popular perception, success does not require working around the clock. People often overestimate work hours; one study comparing people’s estimated workweeks with their actual time diaries found that people claiming 75-plus hour weeks were off by about 25 hours. I asked more than a hundred women with six-figure incomes to track their time for a week for my book I Know How She Does It; their average workweek was 44 hours.

As I’m wrestling with this, my greatest discovery has been that the one indispensable element to creativity is confidence. Everything else is secondary. As a writer, you have to believe absolutely that what you’re communicating has value. I now have to learn how to take something I’ve felt about other people’s stories and apply it, this time, to my own.

I went to a mid-level UC school but maybe could have gotten into Berkeley if I had tried harder. I’ll need you to meet me at about that same level. I’d love it if you taught me things about the world but if you ever respond to my lack of knowledge with a condescending “You don’t know…/ haven’t heard of…” I’ll push you into the rising sea levels of the Pacific Ocean.

Now I’m writing a memoir, and for the first time in my career, I am my subject. The tables have been turned. After so many years of championing the cause of writing about ordinary lives, I find myself playing the role of the reluctant subject. Why would any reader care about what my childhood was like? Who cares what books inspired me to become a writer, or what I first published, or how I come up with stories? Every day I sit down to work on the memoir, I have to assure myself that my story is worth telling; that a reader will find the material engaging; that my life, which of course to me feels quite ordinary, has something in it that will sparkle on the page. It’s not easy. For the first time, I’m experiencing a wobbling self-confidence about my subject. I don’t think I’ve ever before had to wrestle so much self-doubt about my topic. It’s the strangest sensation. I’ve spent decades writing stories that floated entirely on my airy assuredness that they were worthwhile, so I’m unfamiliar with the experience of doubting my subject and wondering if it really deserves to be written about.

That confidence is fundamental. In fact, I couldn’t do what I do without it. I write a lot of stories that, at first glance, seem non-essential: Profiles of orchid poachers, dog actors, decades-old library fires, chicken farming, ten-year-old suburban kids, girls who like to surf. These stories are not burning up the newswire; great matters of state will not be affected by them. To me, though, they’re meaningful stories. They document the human experience, and peer into other lives, and reveal truths about who we are, and illustrate the richness of humanity, and are sometimes just fun to read, and are sometimes going to make you cry, and always, I hope, deepen the readers’ knowledge of lives outside their own.

Sometimes the toughest part of reporting one of these “ordinary life” stories is convincing the subjects that their stories matter. Countless times I’ve called someone who isn’t used to being the subject of media interest, only to have him or her insist that there was nothing special about them, that no one would be interested in who they are. It’s almost always the task of my first conversation with the people I write about — persuading them that readers will find them interesting and their stories compelling.

As I’m wrestling with this, my greatest discovery has been that the one indispensable element to creativity is confidence. Everything else is secondary. As a writer, you have to believe absolutely that what you’re communicating has value. I now have to learn how to take something I’ve felt about other people’s stories and apply it, this time, to my own.

This is especially confounding since the subject is me. I’ve begun to talk to myself the way I talk to my subjects, giving my usual sales pitch, tweaked for my own consumption: Everyone likes to read about other people’s lives, no matter who they are! My life might seem unexceptional to me, but it’s really been quite unusual, and readers will want to peer into it! Don’t doubt the value of your story! It might seem crazy, but I actually have these conversations with myself in my head each time my hands waver over the keyboard and I wonder why, exactly, I’m writing about myself.

I went to a mid-level UC school but maybe could have gotten into Berkeley if I had tried harder. I’ll need you to meet me at about that same level. I’d love it if you taught me things about the world but if you ever respond to my lack of knowledge with a condescending “You don’t know…/ haven’t heard of…” I’ll push you into the rising sea levels of the Pacific Ocean.