From Tolstoy’s Calendar of Wisdom

“Art is one of the means of unifying people. ”

“If beautiful art does not express moral ideas, ideas which unite people, then it isn’t art, but only entertainment. People need to be entertained in order to distance themselves from disappointment in their lives.” — Kant

“Art is one of the most powerful means of convincing people of anything, both good and bad; therefore, you must be very careful in its use.”

An artist is one of two things: he is either a high priest, or a more or less smart entertainer. — Mazzini

“Meditations of discussions about art are the most useless pastimes known. Those who really nkow art nkow that art can speak well with its own language, and that to speak about art with words is useless. Most people speak about art do not understand or feel real art.”

When I hear “digital world” I always first think of my fingers and my toes. Their beauty.Their ridiculousness.Their tastes and wondering. I think of when I was kid—that digital world. How I came to know so much through my digits.

And I think of writing by hand, and what a difference it makes in my own work, in the work of my students, to slow down. To feel paper, pencil—to draw. I want there to be some parts of life that are absolutely quiet, where a certain aspect of soul can come forward.  There’s a digital world right before us, one that centers us in our own creating. I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want my students—who spend most of the rest of their time in the electrified digital world—to lose touch with something elemental, sacred, mysterious, and increasingly rare: the pencil paper world.

Here’s what employers want: creative people who show up on and time. Good social skills combined with a good work ethic. And people who understand how to convert a complex set of messages into a story. English majors do this! They can do this really, really well. English majors understand the power of story, and its deep structure. They know how to manipulate the molecules of story. Sometimes, the best way to play, to create, is on a screen. I think of video games and texting—trading story bits back and forth. I want to keep one hand in that world.

I blog. I know Dreamweaver. I can work on an Excel spreadsheet, and I can tag back, Skype, I would be lost without my library’s online databases. I love the digital world. But I also want to remember paper to us all. And I want to make sure we value the time spent out of that world.

Can’t you please stop sending things in the mail?my agent pleads with me. Everything electronically, please! My private clients, several of whom live far away, understandably want to beam their work to me, instead of the whole rigamarole of post office, seven days of waiting, all that paper—it’s slow and clunky. I understand that. I don’t want to become a crank at all.

But I also want to make sure we save room for, and don’t diminish, the power of sitting down alone, in a room, with a pencil and a heart, a brain and a sheet of paper, and making an elegant thing, with the body, the original digits, from scratch. I want to make sure there’s a room in the house of the English Major—a really elegant, beautifully furnished, simple room, with good light, and plenty of space for pacing—where a writer can sit, alone, at a table, and simply be.

It is from that state of focus and concentration that great ideas spring.

And down the hall, I see the thrilling wired world, and students there, too, making amazing connections.

We were all once babies. Living in the original, essential digital world, fingers in the mouth, toes in the mouth. In touch with a kind of knowing that’s pre-verbal, totally digital, shaping each moment into something like a story.

I am divided into two. I’m the wired hungry learner who posts and clicks and seeks, the woman who doesn’t want to shut down, become cranky, just sayNo! No! The Old Ways are Most Pure! And I’m the teacher-writer who knows in her heart we must keep the quiet room warm, stocked, and open: to keep teaching ourselves how to sit alone with our selves, and know.

Can you make a story with a pencil? I imagine my students being asked at their first job interview. A kid still can do that. What can you do when the power goes out, how do you contribute?

Everything you need is in you.

 February 15.

Today is the last day I have to work on my book. When I sent it in today, at noon, that’s it. No more changes. It’s set in stone.

So I expected, when I woke up this morning to do the final edits, that I would encounter an enormous amount of resistance to working today. I watched myself put in a load of wash. I watched myself brush the dog. I watched as I made a complicated Mexican breakfast for myself. And, I watched as I looked for “lost” papers, as I frenzied about where had I put my editor’s crucial email? Had I left it at school? Should I go down there now and look for it? I opened my phone book and got ready to call my editor. I would have to have more time!

Then, I led myself to my yoga mat and sat myself down. I held myself. I literally gathered myself together. Nothing is lost, I reminded myself.  You have everything you need. Your book will not be perfect. But it is the best you can do. You’ve put your whole heart into it. Yes, you could keep working on it and changing things and maybe you’d make it even better. Maybe you wouldn’t. But now it’s time to let it go. This isn’t easy to do. Not-working and delaying are one way to ease the pain of letting go. Is that the best choice for you to make?

Instead, I decided to make a little list of the things I still had to do on the book. Change “Wha” back to “Wah.” Change the name of the doctor. Make the final changes the copy editor wanted. For example, she wants me to spell out Dungeons and Dragons, because D and D is too unfamiliar. Things like that.

It’s really, really hard to try to do an excellent job and also let the work go. Sometimes, doing an excellent job can feel like this: “I won’t ever be finished!”  The only thing I can compare it to is raising children. You never really are excellent and you are never finished and you always want to go back and fix.

But they are off, books and kids, in the world, leading their own lives.

I am sending my book off today. I have done my work.