Emmasyn

The answer to how to approach your twenties lies between Plath and Didion. Everything you do is irrevocable, because time is finite, which means your choices matter. So you have to choose a fig. You cannot sit “in the crotch of this fig tree starving to death.” But choosing one fig does not cause all the others to instantly fall from the tree. If... See more

Bonjour Tristesse. Françoise Sagan, 1954. a bittersweet tale narrated by self-absorbed seventeen-year-old Cecile on the brink of adulthood, whose meddling in her father's love life leads to tragic consequences.

Where I go for proof and patterns

Once I feel like I have a solid angle to work with, I start looking for more support for it. This isn’t just for simple proof, but to give the piece depth and texture. And this also doesn’t simply mean overly academic sources or hard data (though those are definitely useful too). I look for evidence in a broader... See more

Once I have a topic, I have to figure out what I actually want to say about it. I don’t want to just circle around why it’s interesting, but what it means about our world and the people in it. A “deep dive” has to reveal something that the reader may never have considered before.

This is when you need to start zooming out. Take whatever main point... See more