Annie Dillard- The Writing Life

Today I have had a companion on the silent journey and her name is Annie Dillard. I'm about halfway through her book, The Writing Life. It's an autobiographical tale about what exactly the life of a writer is like.

In one part she talks about how a book takes 2-10 years to write. Some people can do it in less time, but that is rare. Here is a quote, "Out of a human population on earth of four and a half billion (this was in 1989), perhaps twenty people can write a serious book in a year. Some people lift cars, too. Some people enter week-long sled-dog races, go over Niagra Falls in barrels, fly planes through the Arc de Triomphe. Some people feel no pain in childbirth. Some people eat cars. There is no call to take human extremes as norms."

I think we take extremes as norms a lot of the time. We compare ourselves to others- there are good ministers I know who work 80 hours a week- it doesn't mean it should be done. This passage spoke volumes to me about waiting, patience and realistic expectations of myself.