Fulfilling work

I feel like I say this to a lot of people, especially aspiring fiction writers. In my experience, it is really important to do two things.

One: You have to train yourself to notice things. It's not 100% natural at first – it certainly wasn’t for me – but raising those antennae is a very worthwhile thing to do. And it snowballs: once I got started... See more

Further, we can't ignore the ways that our alienated condition obstructs our vision. Without a serious critique of the forces that lead to a state of alienation, we can't meaningfully contemplate how we want to live.

Sometimes maybe it’s best, in art and writing, to be as dumb as possible, follow the joy, because at the very least that's real. And there, you’ve taken the first step towards the truth.

In the novelist’s profession, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no such thing as winning or losing. Maybe numbers of copies sold, awards won, and critics’ praise serve as outward standards for accomplishment in literature, but none of them really matter. What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself. Failure to... See more

It is not that I’m some grumpy person who thinks that some people are great and others aren’t, in some predetermined way—I think you can to a large extent decide which kind you want to be. But if someone else isn’t measuring up, I have no idea how to convince them to do so. So I look for people who have already decided.