Read, Eat, Drink–Weekend Roundup

Read:
As much as agents do our best to try to help writers and offer insight into the wild, whacky world that is publishing, sometimes nothing resonates quite like hearing directly from other writers. So here’s my favorite author blog post of the week–Colleen Hoover’s incredible story of how writing changed her life. Three years ago, she was living in a trailer, working 12 hours a day, and barely making ends meet. She picked up writing in her spare time and self-published her first book. She sold about 30 copies in the first week, but she kept at it. Today, she’s the New York Times bestselling author of 6 books and has a lucrative book deal with Atria/Simon & Schuster. And the best part of it all? In her words:

Three years ago, my husband and I dreamed about the day we would be able to build a new house. Tomorrow, that’s going to happen. On the same land where we happily lived in our single-wide trailer, we will be breaking ground on the house we will spend the rest of our lives in, and I still can’t wrap my head around it.

I know this started with the fact that I wrote and finished a book, but that was as simple as putting a pen to paper. Nothing would have followed had it not been for the support of my readers. Thank you, thank you, thank you for the motivation. And remember-

Dreams are free, so make sure you have a shit-load of them.

And THAT right there is exactly why we’re all in this crazy, unpredictable, shaky business.

You can read Colleen’s full story here.

Eat:
Raise your hand if you like bacon. Looks like…everyone on the planet. And the only thing better than bacon is bacon + pasta, especially when it’s Mario Batali’s Spaghetti Carbonara. This is (I think) the same recipe he uses at his restaurant Otto in New York, but you can make it yourself at home for, oh, a 95% discount.

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