How to tell if you're actually a writer.

Photo from Goodreads

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was. If you can get so that you can give that to people, then you are a writer. 

- Ernest Hemingway

That's the literary quote of the day on my iGoogle. I read that first thing upon starting my computer and thought, "Oh, fuck." That's a tall order, Ernest. And don't get me started (again) on the state of my novel. I'm hoping that having recently started East of Eden, and subsequently abandoning Travels with Charley (for the time being), will push me in the right direction. I've always compensated for any lack of real writing inspiration with a good book and according to everyone (read: Oprah), East of Eden is just that. And now that I have a rubric courtesy of Ernie up there, I'll be able to know once and for all just how good it is. 

I've been loving my smoothie breakfasts in the mornings and being in the office again, though taking the train again is both a comfort and a hindrance, as usual. Today is an Ice Cream Social put on by my company's building, and I only wish I had more friends that worked here so we could eat our soft serve in the parking lot chatting about our days. Instead I'll probably bring my beast of a book with me and do a little damage. Tomorrow I'll be working from home and it can't come soon enough. Mike will be in town, hopefully in time for an Indian lunch buffet (yes, again) and then off to Rhode Island for the night. Each day that I can leave the house in a cardigan, I feel a little more rushed to squeeze in these whirlwind weekends before the snow moves in and traps us again.