Final Friday Five

I’ve had a busy, busy summer. I’ve spent a lot of time working, a lot of time playing, and a lot of time thinking about the perennial work-life balance question.

I recently read an excellent article about saying no (I quoted from it earlier this week), and the author had this to say: “Forget balance. Balance is bullshit. What I mostly crave is integrity and joy—a sense that I’m doing what I do excellently and getting a lot of pleasure out of it, that I’m used up and useful.” As a Libra (yes, I believe in that sort of thing sometimes) the idea of balance being bullshit is equal parts exciting and scary. Integrity, joy, and usefulness, though—that I can fully get behind.

As I look to the fall, this month’s links are in the spirit of loving what I do, doing it well, and doing it the right amount to keep on loving it. I hope you like them.

1. 12 things no one tells you about being an entrepreneur
2. Why do we call it the big red house and not the red big house? I loved this piece on Slate about the secret rules of adjective order. It is stuff like this that reminds me why language is so cool.
3. Some say that in editing, 95% error-free is 100% as good as it’s going to get (though you still need a plan for what to do when you screw it up).
4. Advice I sent to a client that I am trying to take myself: how to cultivate a writing routine when you own your own business.
5. Dani Shapiro in the New Yorker on writing memoir in the age of status updates: “We don’t experience the Pavlovian, addictive click and response of posting something that momentarily relieves the pressure inside of us, then being showered with emoticons. The gratification we memoirists do experience is infinitely deeper and more bittersweet.”