Once a year, she remembers that she is insignificant. Then she forgets agains, because more than she is insignificant, she is forgetful.

Also, I need deadlines, just like everybody else, especially coming from magazines, newspapers, and stuff like that. I need daily or weekly deadlines to get stuff done, or I continue to do things and not go off on a year of unproductivity.

Writing is a deep-sea dive. You need hours just to get into it: down, down, down. If you're called back to the surface every couple of minutes by an email, you can't ever get back down. I have a great friend who became a Twitterer and he says he hasn't written anything for a year.

You know, it's been proven that 35 to 40 hours a year with one-on-one attention, a student can get one grade level higher