[image error]“The writing life is rarely up and to the right,” my friend Jonathan tells me, and I nod, even though he can’t see me on the floor, wedged between my bed and the dog’s, wiping ugly cry off of my cheeks.

I’ve been having a WEEK.

You probably know this kind of week. It’s the week you hope everything might fall into place like chips on a Plinko board, and instead you’re still coming up nil. It’s the week when you imagine your “fake it ’til you make it” might start to pay off but you didn’t quite...