A Breakup Letter to My Writing Career

Every reader is a reader of crime novels. They want the criminal to succeed because they want to escape, and they want the police to catch the criminal because they want to restore order. The reader has the same attitude toward writing in general. She wants it to be free, and then she also wants to say that the third act was all wrong, or that the story didn’t deliver, or that this time around its heart wasn’t in the right place. But whenever a story seems off, that’s when you know that the author was free. A story isn’t a fucking chair. This isn’t Bauhaus.

related reading

• Write Till You Droparchive.nytimes.com
• the virtues of the boring draft - by Brandon Taylorblgtylr.substack.com
• Literary Hub >> Winning the Game You Didn’t Even Want to Play: On Sally Rooney and the Literature of the Poselithub.com
• Literary Hub >> When a Story is Best Told Backwardslithub.com
• Ta nên đọc sách thế nào? - by lan-anh nguyenquytshortstory.substack.com
• You're Writing a Book. So Stop Writing a Movie.rebeccamakkai.substack.com
• Everything's Finenadastudios.art
• Write Till You Droparchive.nytimes.com
• Calvinojfki.fu-berlin.de
• One year of envy, lies, and greed - by Sam Krisssamkriss.substack.com
• The Yale Review | Michel Chaouli: "Do You Actually Have to Finish…yalereview.org
• Fail better | Review | Guardian Unlimited Booksweb.archive.org