Writing

The many strands of the perplexing plot were resolved either by ‘Fate’, the fulfilment of a gypsy’s curse or a thunderstorm.

Even as an adolescent, William fatally overestimated the literary significance of weather.

Note:

I know that there are a lot of writers who believe they have access to a kind of artistic magic that allows them to inhabit any community in the world and write about it as if it is their own. I think those writers overestimate the power of their talent and intelligence, and underestimate how wisdom accrues over time, among nations and peoples, acr... See more

What has been surprising—pleasantly so—is that there really is no translation needed, that going deeper actually reveals the human. Get to the general through the specific, as the rule goes. Still, even as I have come to understand this, it feels abstract to me.

My loyalty to that lesson is dispositional—I am often struck by secondhand embarrassment watching writers defend themselves against every bad review. But it’s also strategic: My work is to set the table, craft the argument, render the world as I imagine it, and then go. The late Jamal Khashoggi was fond of the Arabic proverb “Say your word, then le... See more

The danger we present, as writers, is not that we will simply convince their children of a different dogma but that we will convince them that they have the power to form their own.

Haunt. You’ve heard me say this word a lot. It is never enough for the reader of your words to be convinced. The goal is to haunt—to have them think about your words before bed, see them manifest in their dreams, tell their partner about them the next morning, to have them grab random people on the street, shake them and say, “Have you read this ye... See more