We Come From Long Lines Of People

I Was A Lot Dumber When I Was Writing The Novel. I Felt Like Worse Of A Writer Because I Wrote Many Of The Short Stories In One Sitting Or Over Maybe Three Days, And They Didn't Change That Much. There Weren't Many, Many Drafts. That Made Me Feel Semi-brilliant And Part Of A Magical Process. Writing The Novel Wasn't Like That. I Would Come Home Every Day From My Office And Say, "well, I Still Really Like The Story, I Just Wish It Was Better Written." At That Point, I Didn't Realize I Was Writing A First Draft. And The First Draft Was The Hardest Part.

I Like Embracing Kind Of Normal Forms But Am Always Trying To Approach Them As If No One's Ever Done That Before. As If I'm Literally The First Person To Ever Write A Book.

Sometimes I Lie In Bed Trying To Decide Which Of My Friends I Truly Care About, And I Always Come To The Same Conclusion: None Of Them. I Thought These Were Just My Starter Friends And The Real Ones Would Come Along Later. But No. These Are My Real Friends.

I'm Always Just Trying To Get The Work Done So That I Can Be Free - Like, With The Sense That, Like, The Real Me Has No Interest In This? I Just Gotta Do It For My Boss. But The Catch Is That I'm Never Free, I Never Finish The Work, So I Don't Know Who This Freewheeling Employee With Extracurricular Interests Is.

I Looked At Other Couples And Wondered How They Could Be So Calm About It. They Held Hands As If They Weren't Even Holding Hands. When Steve And I Held Hands, I Had To Keep Looking Down To Marvel At It. There Was My Hand, The Same Hand I've Always Had - Oh, But Look! What Is It Holding? It's Holding Steve's Hand! Who Is Steve? My Three-dimensional Boyfriend. Each Day I Wondered What Would Happen Next. What Happens When You Stop Wanting, When You Are Happy. I Supposed I Would Go On Being Happy Forever. I Knew I Would Not Mess Things Up By Growing Bored. I Had Done That Once Before.