Cocktail hour reads.

Sunday nights, and the prospect of another week in the trenches, have always been difficult for me. Over the years, I've learned to sink my nose into a book or magazine. It puts me back into the present, and primes my brain for the work week ahead.

With that, it's the perfect time to pour yourself a beverage of your choosing, put on some big band music, and do some reading. Think of this as your digital evening newspaper. Enjoy.

• A teen's parents are fighting to allow her to use medicinal marijuana -- the only medicine that has alleviated her condition --  while in school (NJ.com).
• Tim Ferriss explains the importance of a morning ritual. (fourhourworkweek.com)
• Your cat is trying to talk to you (New York Magazine).
• You're racking your kettlebells wrong (Onnit Academy).

Write, and edit, like a sculptor.

I lack the motor skills required to be an artist. So I'm in awe of anyone -- artists and musicians -- and their creations. Sure, I play a little guitar. But who doesn't? To me, a guitar is just a G-chord machine.

Sculptors especially impress me. As a teen, I was fortunate enough to go to Italy and see Florence. One of the most vivid memories of the trip was seeing Michelangelo's David. I don't know anything about art, or sculpture, but there's something appealing about the workman-like nature of the form. Hammers. Chisels. Blow torches. Take a perfectly good piece of material and find the gem that's hidden inside it. The paradox of creation through destruction.

That's what struck me about the sculpture. Michelangelo chipped away everything that wasn't David.

That's a lot like editing. John McPhee wrote this fantastic article for The New Yorker two years ago about the agony of writing, and the satisfaction of editing. Like Michelangelo, he describes the process of taking away everything that isn't the story, and how the drafts progress from intolerable, to just plain bad, to OK, to maybe good. Leave the last part up to the reader.

I make a living editing. When I write, it's hard to get the editor out of my head. But like McPhee, writing is the hardest part. Getting that first draft out of me requires some procedures outlawed under the Geneva Conventions. The workmanship, and the fun, comes in the editing process.

Three demons | Procrastination.

I am a procrastinator by nature. My grandfather used to say that's what our last name meant in Irish. Some percentage of that is probably true. The Hannans love a good story.

In college, I did an independent study in which I wrote a novella that's sat on a hard drive for the past six years. The six or so months I spent working on it were the only uninterrupted block of time I've spent writing fiction. I've written in fits and starts since. The lion's share of the work has been seen only by me.

What stopped me from writing? Several things: fear, rationalization and procrastination. My three demons. I'll visit each in turn. But today, it's procrastination.

I thought that the fuel to write would come with time, which is about as stupid as thinking a fire will build and light itself. Maybe I needed to travel more, I thought. Or to move. Maybe getting out more with friends would give me what I needed. Or maybe I had to have some experience or realization that would inspire me.

Until then, I was going to wait for it. Whatever it was.

I'd still be waiting. I decided to start instead.

I write most of these the night before they get posted. I'm tired. And very sore from a pretty intense kettlebell/body weight circuit I did this morning. It's late for me right now. I have yet to log my hour on the book. It would be easy to say, I'll log that hour in the morning and cash in on the sleep tonight. But I know I won't.  I'll wake up, and life will take over. 

I won't let myself procrastinate anymore. I won't let myself kill the momentum that I've worked so hard to generate. I might sit down and write absolute shit for an hour, but at least the work got done. At least the streak continues. 

The life unread.

As an unpublished author, I feel like I'm not in any position to be giving advice on writing. For the most part, I'll be sticking to providing fuel for creative endeavors. But this is a subject on which I feel comfortable giving advice.

You're not reading enough. As someone who makes a living reading, the experience has strengthened my approach when I switch to the other side of the desk. My best teachers are other writers.

When I read, plot is secondary to the workings of the complex machinery that the author has put to paper. I want to know what about her prose is making me feel a certain way. Or how he captures the nuance of a New York accent. Or why she's turned her back on adverbs. To put it another way, I read like a painter might look at a painting in a gallery. Instead of gazing from a comfortable distance, I'm up close, examining the brush strokes.

Why aren't you reading more books? Blame the internet-connected device you're holding. Put it down and read something. You'll feel better and you'll learn something about how this complex machine runs.

Coffee with General Grant.

I take my morning coffee with the General. Of all the great generals in history -- and Grant was a great one -- he's the one I identify with most. Here's why:

Grant wasn't the smartest general that either side of the Civil War put into the field. He wasn't the best with tactics or strategy. He wasn't particularly loquacious. By all accounts, he was taciturn. Sensitive. And he could be a drunk. But he knew how to fail. He knew how to take a punch.

After the battle of Shiloh, which resulted in a Union Pyrrhic victory with 13,000 casualties,  the talking heads of the time were clamoring for his termination. President Lincoln dismissed the suggestion: "I can't spare this man; he fights."

Grant ground it out in the Wilderness, and at the sieges of Vicksburg and Petersburg. He stood his ground when he had to. He did something previously unheard of in the Union army -- he advanced after defeat.

After the first day of fighting during the Wilderness Campaign, where 2,000 Union men died, Grant is said to have broken down and cried in his tent at the loss of life. Grant knew the ugliness of the war. But he didn't shy from it. He did what had to be done.

Back to Shiloh. After the first day of fighting, Gen. William T. Sherman found Grant smoking a cigar under a tree. The day had gone horribly for the Union Army. Sherman said to him, "Well, Grant, we've had the devil's own day, haven't we?" 

"Yes," Grant said. "Yes. Lick 'em tomorrow, though."