All writing about despair is ultimately insincere. Putting f...

All writing about despair is ultimately insincere. Putting fingers to keys or pen to paper is secretly an act of hope, however faint—hope that someone will read your words, hope that someone will understand. Someone who truly feels despair wouldn’t bother to tell anyone about it because they wouldn’t expect it to do anything. All text produced in despair, then, is ultimately subtext. It shouts “All is lost!” but it whispers “Please find me.”

All writing about despair is ultimately insincere. Putting fingers to keys or pen to paper is secretly an act of hope, however faint—hope that someone will read your words, hope that someone will understand. Someone who truly feelsdespair wouldn’t bother to tell anyone about it because they wouldn’t expect it to do anything. All text produced in... See more

Adam Mastroianni • 28 Slightly Rude Notes on Writing

Saved by Aman

RelatedInsightsNotes

While finishing the book, I wrote to a novelist friend and asked him whether I sounded naïve in my approach. Of course you do, he said, and that’s the only way to write anything in a dying world. In fact, to write any book is an act of practically fanatic devotion, he said, because to write a book is to insist on the possibility of a future in... See more

Adam Mastroianni • 28 Slightly Rude Notes on Writing

Elvia Wilk • Fandom as Methodology: On Fan-Nonfiction and Finding the Joy of Mutual Delusion

Joan Didion • On Keeping A Notebook

Brené Brown • Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience