This weekend I’ve been chewing over issues of literature and the literary life as compared to the work and life of commercial writer. I’ve paid my bills for a decade as a writer, I didn’t do that by sniffing at potential clients — I’ve sacrificed most of my snobbery when it comes to the written word. I am firmly in the writing proletariat, and you can see that in my style. Conversational, accessible, maybe a little pedantic and hipstery, but always accessible.

The issue for me flares up when I peek into the world of literature and recoil a bit at the pretence. Language can be used for the powers of good or the powers of evil, and I get cringey and pissed off when I see people using words for the powers of evil. Evil meaning “intentionally making others feel stupid to make themselves feel smarter.”
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