Fortune Cookies

A plastic-spiral-bound 1993 Iowa Woman Endeavors workbook and an unopened second edition of Brenda Ueland’s If You Want To Write accompany my half-written writing projects, strewn across the table, discarded paper fortunes amid the crumbles of broken cookies. Scattered pages. Tattered dreams. The title page for Rock-A-Bye Moon – an unwritten book for my children – is a remnant of my pre-Google existence. Notes From The Kitchen Window – a compilation of family folklore – is an unpublished book written before the concept of ISBN entered my consciousness. The 100 recipes dispersed from my mother’s kitchen were actually published as a family cookbook about a decade ago, but my youngest sister never received a copy. She asked again recently.

As I examine the scattered pages amid the crumbled cookies, the task before
me is not as overwhelming as it once seemed.
I unearth the originals for my mother’s cookbook and set them aside to take to the printer, make a copy for my sister. I read through the family folklore. The writing is actually pretty good. The typos will be part of the charm. I’ll take that to the printer too, maybe get an ISBN, just in case.

Rw


Speak Less by Laura Kimball
What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know - Ralph Waldo Emerson I once received a fortune cookie that read: “Speak less of your plans, you’ll get more done.” What’s one project that you’ve been sitting on and thinking about but haven’t made progress on? What’s stopping you? What would happen if you actually went for it and did it?