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A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction
From bestselling and award-winning author and professor Elizabeth McCracken comes an irresistible look at the art of writing.
Writing can feel like an endless series of decisions. How does one face the blank page? Move a character around a room? Deal with time? Undertake revision? The good and bad news is that in fiction writing, there are no definitive answers to such writers must come up with their own. Elizabeth McCracken, author of bestselling novels, National Book Award long-listed story collections, and a highly praised memoir, has been teaching for more than thirty-five years, guiding her many students through their own answers. In A Long Game, she shares insights gleaned along the way, offering practical tips and incisive thoughts about her own work as an artist. “Writing is a long game,” she notes. “What matters is that you learn to get work done in the way that is possible for you, through consistency or panic. Through self-recrimination or every life needs both.”
As much a book about the life of a working artist as it is a guide to thinking about fiction, A Long Game is a revelatory and indispensable resource for any writer.
Writing can feel like an endless series of decisions. How does one face the blank page? Move a character around a room? Deal with time? Undertake revision? The good and bad news is that in fiction writing, there are no definitive answers to such writers must come up with their own. Elizabeth McCracken, author of bestselling novels, National Book Award long-listed story collections, and a highly praised memoir, has been teaching for more than thirty-five years, guiding her many students through their own answers. In A Long Game, she shares insights gleaned along the way, offering practical tips and incisive thoughts about her own work as an artist. “Writing is a long game,” she notes. “What matters is that you learn to get work done in the way that is possible for you, through consistency or panic. Through self-recrimination or every life needs both.”
As much a book about the life of a working artist as it is a guide to thinking about fiction, A Long Game is a revelatory and indispensable resource for any writer.
208 pages, Hardcover
Published December 2, 2025
209 people are currently reading
9343 people want to read
About the author
Elizabeth McCracken
46 books994 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Elizabeth McCracken (born 1966) is an American author. She is married to the novelist Edward Carey, with whom she has two children - August George Carey Harvey and Matilda Libby Mary Harvey. An earlier child died before birth, an experience which formed the basis for McCracken's memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.
McCracken, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from Newton North High School in Newton, Massachusetts, and holds a degree in library science from Simmons College, a women's college in Boston. McCracken currently lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she is an artist-in-residence at Skidmore College. She is the sister of PC World magazine editor-in-chief Harry McCracken.
Elizabeth McCracken (born 1966) is an American author. She is married to the novelist Edward Carey, with whom she has two children - August George Carey Harvey and Matilda Libby Mary Harvey. An earlier child died before birth, an experience which formed the basis for McCracken's memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination.
McCracken, a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from Newton North High School in Newton, Massachusetts, and holds a degree in library science from Simmons College, a women's college in Boston. McCracken currently lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she is an artist-in-residence at Skidmore College. She is the sister of PC World magazine editor-in-chief Harry McCracken.
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January 13, 2026Not sure why I read books like this. Because some day I want to work on a novel, I guess. You know. More than just a one-trick (poetry) pony. Plenty of poets have taken the plunge, after all.
As McCracken teaches (surprise!) writing at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and the U of Texas Austin, there are some insights from that angle. I guess I like best the format. Each "paragraph" is numbered and they total 280 (in 188 pp.). It made the book more inviting and easier to navigate.
Concrete advice on writing? It's here, though she doesn't lay it on with a trowel and if you're looking for a more specific playbook, you'd best look elsewhere. Quirky? I'd say, with plenty of opinion, humorous touches, admissions that all advice can equally be seen as b.s. (because everyone taking it is different, so of course results will vary).
Fun to read. Light. Didn't move me to start Chapter the First or anything, so not a charismatic wunderbuch. But still, when you read books like this, who cares?
As McCracken teaches (surprise!) writing at the Iowa Writer's Workshop and the U of Texas Austin, there are some insights from that angle. I guess I like best the format. Each "paragraph" is numbered and they total 280 (in 188 pp.). It made the book more inviting and easier to navigate.
Concrete advice on writing? It's here, though she doesn't lay it on with a trowel and if you're looking for a more specific playbook, you'd best look elsewhere. Quirky? I'd say, with plenty of opinion, humorous touches, admissions that all advice can equally be seen as b.s. (because everyone taking it is different, so of course results will vary).
Fun to read. Light. Didn't move me to start Chapter the First or anything, so not a charismatic wunderbuch. But still, when you read books like this, who cares?
August 3, 2025
In A Long Game, Elizabeth McCracken doles out advice on writing without giving advice. "This is a book that dispenses advice...As with any such book...a lot of it is hogwash." What she goes on to explain in her vignettes is that what works for one writer doesn't necessarily work for another writer. Even so, she pushes on to explain the elements of writing such as POV and dialogue. This is what they are, this is what they do, but you ultimately choose how to go about it. I enjoyed her push for the author to get inside the character's body, not just in their head.
McCracken uses humor deftly and her personal experiences helped me connect to the writing. I will be starting this over to make sure I didn't miss anything. A delightful craft book.
I received this as an uncorrected proof through a Goodreads Giveaway.
McCracken uses humor deftly and her personal experiences helped me connect to the writing. I will be starting this over to make sure I didn't miss anything. A delightful craft book.
I received this as an uncorrected proof through a Goodreads Giveaway.
January 20, 2026
In the hands of the right person, this will be a very liberating writing guide. ✍️
There are plenty of writing guide books on the market, but with A Long Game Elizabeth McCracken appears to have written the anti-writing guide book (in the best way), and even warns readers as such right from the start:
Across 280 brief insights on writing, McCracken essentially takes all the rules you've ever heard about writing and tosses them into the trash, and says that writing isn't about following rules, it's about finding what works best for you.
^ That is undoubtedly good advice.
Here are a few other morsels of insight that stood out to me while reading:
🚫 Don't follow all writing advice exactly, except for this one: Don't use a gothic font to make your work feel spooky.
🍷 It's more fun to be drunk on language (i.e., reach for your thesaurus; expand your vocabulary).
❤️ Write the book for your heart that only you can write.
👎 Screw all the writing rules. There will always be some author or book that breaks them magnificently, thereby rendering them false.
🐂 Be bullheaded about your work and romanticize the process so you keep writing.
🤪 Embrace your own strangeness. It's what makes your work original.
📝 Outlining works for some but not others. As will all things writing, you must find what works for you.
Did I agree with every point McCracken made? No. But it doesn't matter, because the point of this book is that what works for her may not work for me or for you. Read A Long Game to take from it what you want and leave the rest for others.
Is A Long Game purely a writing guide book? No. I'd argue that is has hints of memoir because McCracken also shares tidbits about her career as a writing professor and a published author.
Here are some bonus tips from the book:
✍️ If you wait until you feel confident enough to start your novel, you'll be waiting forever.
📚 You needn't limit yourself to writing what you know because with hard work and a willingness to learn you can make yourself know a great deal.
🏋️♀️ Writing is weightlifting. Lifting a small amount often will not train you to lift a bigger weight.
😐 Just because something is serious doesn't make it deep.
👉 If you find yourself struggling to write because you feel enslaved to The Rules, this is the book for you because A Long Game grants permission to break off the shackles and write freely.
Many thanks to Ecco books for sending me a requested copy of this book.
There are plenty of writing guide books on the market, but with A Long Game Elizabeth McCracken appears to have written the anti-writing guide book (in the best way), and even warns readers as such right from the start:
Any writer's ideal craft manual must be bespoke, like a suit, made to measure. Write a manifesto aimed only at your own work without worrying whether it applies to or offends anybody else in the world.
Across 280 brief insights on writing, McCracken essentially takes all the rules you've ever heard about writing and tosses them into the trash, and says that writing isn't about following rules, it's about finding what works best for you.
^ That is undoubtedly good advice.
Here are a few other morsels of insight that stood out to me while reading:
🚫 Don't follow all writing advice exactly, except for this one: Don't use a gothic font to make your work feel spooky.
🍷 It's more fun to be drunk on language (i.e., reach for your thesaurus; expand your vocabulary).
❤️ Write the book for your heart that only you can write.
👎 Screw all the writing rules. There will always be some author or book that breaks them magnificently, thereby rendering them false.
🐂 Be bullheaded about your work and romanticize the process so you keep writing.
🤪 Embrace your own strangeness. It's what makes your work original.
📝 Outlining works for some but not others. As will all things writing, you must find what works for you.
Did I agree with every point McCracken made? No. But it doesn't matter, because the point of this book is that what works for her may not work for me or for you. Read A Long Game to take from it what you want and leave the rest for others.
Is A Long Game purely a writing guide book? No. I'd argue that is has hints of memoir because McCracken also shares tidbits about her career as a writing professor and a published author.
Here are some bonus tips from the book:
✍️ If you wait until you feel confident enough to start your novel, you'll be waiting forever.
📚 You needn't limit yourself to writing what you know because with hard work and a willingness to learn you can make yourself know a great deal.
🏋️♀️ Writing is weightlifting. Lifting a small amount often will not train you to lift a bigger weight.
😐 Just because something is serious doesn't make it deep.
👉 If you find yourself struggling to write because you feel enslaved to The Rules, this is the book for you because A Long Game grants permission to break off the shackles and write freely.
Many thanks to Ecco books for sending me a requested copy of this book.
February 1, 2026
Re-read in its entirety inside of an airstream trailer in between bursts of pounding out a first draft, like coming up from the muck for air. The big takeaways for me this go around came towards the end and felt like direct responses to my particular hurdles this weekend.
The first:
"I love humor, as I love anything or anyone who has saved my life, and if I have a complaint about modern American letters, it's the occasional dismissal of books that are funny. Our puritan forbears: if you enjoy something, it can't be good."
And:
"Humor isn't shallow; it's not a glib coping mechanism. It comes from wells inside us as deep as grief and fury and love."
And, finally:
"If you revise trying to answer every objection anyone has to your work, you will write something unobjectionable. Nothing is worse than unobjectionable fiction."
The first:
"I love humor, as I love anything or anyone who has saved my life, and if I have a complaint about modern American letters, it's the occasional dismissal of books that are funny. Our puritan forbears: if you enjoy something, it can't be good."
And:
"Humor isn't shallow; it's not a glib coping mechanism. It comes from wells inside us as deep as grief and fury and love."
And, finally:
"If you revise trying to answer every objection anyone has to your work, you will write something unobjectionable. Nothing is worse than unobjectionable fiction."
November 23, 2025
“To consider yourself a writer as you move about the world is—I am a true believer—a beautiful way to live, a form of open-mindedness, even in terrible times.”
This is not an instruction manual. It is made up on brief blurbs, some of them musings about the art of writing and others that go more into the craft itself. Author McCracken is a writing instructor, and she does talk a lot about her personal experience both as an author and a teacher. You’ll bet a little bit of everything, though none of it goes very deep.
I will say that McCracken covers various angles of the writing process and offers an occasional fresh insight. And if you are a writer, the book is filled with comforting bits of gold such as:
“We are not meant to know what we’re doing.”
I especially appreciated the section about how writing every single day does not work for everyone, and that’s okay. (Literally everyone tells you that you must do this in order to be a SERIOUS writer, so to hear someone actually have a realistic and understanding take was amazing.)
Here and there I found bits that didn’t really seem to hold a lot of meaning but seemed to be added because they sounded good. But this was a pleasant read overall, and I did highlight numerous parts of it.
“A Long Game” will not really tell you HOW to write a novel, but it will likely get you excited about sitting down to write.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
This is not an instruction manual. It is made up on brief blurbs, some of them musings about the art of writing and others that go more into the craft itself. Author McCracken is a writing instructor, and she does talk a lot about her personal experience both as an author and a teacher. You’ll bet a little bit of everything, though none of it goes very deep.
I will say that McCracken covers various angles of the writing process and offers an occasional fresh insight. And if you are a writer, the book is filled with comforting bits of gold such as:
“We are not meant to know what we’re doing.”
I especially appreciated the section about how writing every single day does not work for everyone, and that’s okay. (Literally everyone tells you that you must do this in order to be a SERIOUS writer, so to hear someone actually have a realistic and understanding take was amazing.)
Here and there I found bits that didn’t really seem to hold a lot of meaning but seemed to be added because they sounded good. But this was a pleasant read overall, and I did highlight numerous parts of it.
“A Long Game” will not really tell you HOW to write a novel, but it will likely get you excited about sitting down to write.
Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
October 9, 2025
Started slow for me. But then there were these dazzling insights that took my breath away. While aimed at writers and aspiring writers, the advice is applicable to a wide range of situations. Will be recommending to my writing group. Elizabeth McCracken's narration of her own words made me feel like I was sitting in the classroom of a favorite professor, not one of those big auditorium classrooms where the teacher lectures but a small conference room with old wooden tables and wide open windows. It reminded me of the best parts of writing workshops. Thank you to McCracken, HarperAudio Adult, and NetGalley for the audioARC.
January 1, 2026
251 - Hard not to think there’s a future in which your career will be different—when the things you’ve longed for are in your lap—and you can rest. No writer ever stops thinking this, not even the very successful ones. The lucky break. It’s why people buy lottery tickets.
Your writing life is right now, whatever that looks like. It is already underway. Don’t wait to write the work you’ve always wanted to. Don’t put things off, waiting for luck to change your life and career. Arrange your life now to be as conducive to writing as it can be.
How fitting that this was the book that took me into the new year, because a long game, as Elizabeth McCracken calls writing, is where I plan to devote my efforts in 2026.
This is one of the most fun books on craft that I’ve read. I loved McCracken’s tone, and her insight on the act of writing itself, the life you must build yourself in order to write, and the business of writing and publishing are excellent.
I have to admit I haven’t read any of her work prior to this, but I will definitely be remedying that as soon as possible, and I will definitely be carrying the words from this book with me through the year to come.
January 1, 2026
My new favourite book on craft. Loved everything about it.
October 13, 2025
On reading and writing: "What we love is inspiring, but what we hate is instructive."
It hardly feels appropriate to write a review on this craft book. Elizabeth McCracken shatters the rules of writing a novel, offering gold nuggets of insight and encouragement.
"I'm interested in modes of thinking, not rules."
I fell in love with the structure. There are 280 chapters, some of them one sentence only, of valuable and witty words of wisdom.
"Ambition in fiction is willingness to make mistakes."
Listening to her read her own work made me think of each chapter becoming a quote calendar where you tear off each day's wisdom.
"It's more important to choose an interesting event in fiction than a meaningful one. In fiction, you might as well run counter to your own human habits. You might as well be decisive if given to dithering."
This book is a gold mine of insight for someone like me who is just beginning her journey into playwriting. It was refreshing. I took so many notes that it may be illegal.
My favorite quote: "Some people love art that has no humor in it. I suspect they are the kind of people who drink meal replacement shakes and declare them 'better than you think'."
Thank you, NetGalley, Elizabeth McCracken, and Harper Audio for this audio ARC in exchange for my honest review.
It hardly feels appropriate to write a review on this craft book. Elizabeth McCracken shatters the rules of writing a novel, offering gold nuggets of insight and encouragement.
"I'm interested in modes of thinking, not rules."
I fell in love with the structure. There are 280 chapters, some of them one sentence only, of valuable and witty words of wisdom.
"Ambition in fiction is willingness to make mistakes."
Listening to her read her own work made me think of each chapter becoming a quote calendar where you tear off each day's wisdom.
"It's more important to choose an interesting event in fiction than a meaningful one. In fiction, you might as well run counter to your own human habits. You might as well be decisive if given to dithering."
This book is a gold mine of insight for someone like me who is just beginning her journey into playwriting. It was refreshing. I took so many notes that it may be illegal.
My favorite quote: "Some people love art that has no humor in it. I suspect they are the kind of people who drink meal replacement shakes and declare them 'better than you think'."
Thank you, NetGalley, Elizabeth McCracken, and Harper Audio for this audio ARC in exchange for my honest review.
December 8, 2025
“Sometimes I think I’d like to have an advice column, then I realize my answer to every single letter would be, ‘Buck up, for God’s sake.’ I don’t believe that bucking up is the answer to every problem, just that bucking up never hurt. Bucking up is not the same thing as sucking it up. Bucking up is not an endpoint: once you’ve done it, you can go on to other things.”
The only craft book I've ever read that provides a flawless argument for its existence.
That is to say: this should be the only you need.
The only craft book I've ever read that provides a flawless argument for its existence.
That is to say: this should be the only you need.
November 14, 2025
It's fascinating to step into the mind of a writer, especially a fiction write (I think), and I enjoyed McCracken's reflections, advice, and peeking into her process as a writer. The book is written in essays of varying length and I think that format did not work for me as well as a more cohesive non-fiction advice/narrative would have. I found it hard to remember the previous advice because we weren't building on an underlying theme. McCracken is a professor of creative writing and this book felt like a collection of chats that she might sit down to have with a student. I think this would make a great book to pick up, flip to a page, and take in the advice, as compared to a thesis on creativity, like the book Big Magic.
Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for an ARC of this book.
Thank you to the publisher and Net Galley for an ARC of this book.
January 14, 2026
I highly recommend this on audio, whether you are a writer or not. Listening to her talk about writing is like listening to Ina Garten talk about cooking: confident, warm, tough, inspiring, and funny, deeply connected with and intuitive with the art form without ever being too precious.
I had also forgotten (!!!!) that she wrote a book that found me when I needed it so badly and was very sad, and it made me feel so much less alone: an exact replica of a figment of my imagination (TW for that one/read the book jacket before reading!).
The two memoirs could not be more different, were written decades and eras apart, and each managed to find me at the exact right moment I most needed them and for that I am very grateful, what a gift when that happens, writers can only hope for their books to find people in that way.
I had also forgotten (!!!!) that she wrote a book that found me when I needed it so badly and was very sad, and it made me feel so much less alone: an exact replica of a figment of my imagination (TW for that one/read the book jacket before reading!).
The two memoirs could not be more different, were written decades and eras apart, and each managed to find me at the exact right moment I most needed them and for that I am very grateful, what a gift when that happens, writers can only hope for their books to find people in that way.
January 20, 2026
review coming soon
January 18, 2026
Most likely one of the best books I will have read this year. Insightful, honest and so inspiring - has given me such an itch to write.
‘Slow and steady wins the race, but it doesn’t whip the wind through your hair’.
‘Slow and steady wins the race, but it doesn’t whip the wind through your hair’.
December 19, 2025
76: Did I say that real life occurs in the present tense? I don’t believe that. We live in a great simultaneity. Sometimes you pay attention only to the thing in front of you, but generally you bring along your past—your obsessions and wounds and grudges—and your future—your worries and dreams. When you meet somebody you think you might come to love: that is a cacophony of timelines. When you visit a patient in the hospital, all the hospital visits of your life gather around your shoulders, like cherubs in a painting. (pp. 29-30)
This is the craft book that author Elizabeth McCracken insisted, at one point, that she would never write. I’m glad she did: there are so many insights here that could have only been gained through both writing and teaching, and engaging in that feedback loop for years. Here are some of My own Notes on Elizabeth McCracken’s Notes on Writing Fiction:
• A veritable trove of observations.
• I’ve only read one of McCracken’s novels myself, and it was so emotionally devastating that I’ve been a bit wary of other works
• This consists of numbered excerpts; I’ve skipped to the end to see how many: why 280?
• “39: No writing is wasted. Even what we throw out is progress.”
• We don’t get our first prescriptive pieces of advice (do this, not this) until Part IV, where McCracken breaks down the different kinds of narrators.
• In talking about writing fiction, I feel McCracken is really opening me up to ways/modes/reasons of enjoying it as well.
• “If you’re stuck, take notes.” Wow!
• “122: I have no strong feelings about whether writers should describe their characters physically. This is a basic aesthetic choice. Some writers want readers to know what color their characters’ eyes are.”; Well, I do McCracken!
• “135: When your characters look at something, including one another, consider describing what they see instead.”
• So many good examples here, I feel like I would have loved McCracken as a writing instructor
• “202: … Humor isn’t shallow; it’s not a glib coping mechanism. It comes from wells inside us as deep as grief and fury and love”; McCracken is consistently funny throughout. It makes me believe her and believe in her.
• “221: …it’s the critics themselves who should not take the stories they read personally. That is, they should not believe that the stories are written for them, their particular interests and ignorance. Read work and meet the work where its intentions lie: that’s the only way to be useful as a reader.” McCracken clocked most of us on this site! Whoops
• She also clocks publishing, esp. w/r/t titles as marketing.
• This is a reference/craft book not just for writing fiction, but loving it.
January 21, 2026
Read and studied December 18 2025 to January 19 2026.
McCracken was a teacher at Iowa University and is now in Texas. She's a great teacher of creative writing and this book has lots of interesting ideas on which to think. I am much more orderly than she is, a planner, and she is not. She believes in the creative unconscious though and so do I, but I enjoy writing more if I think about it a lot before I write, say like Iris Murdoch and dozens of other famous writers. She is perhaps a stylist who is more interested in the spatial. Some of it I could not decide. I did listen to a podcast with her which explained much more about how she approached writing stories. But I very much enjoyed reading her thoughts which are "put out" in little entries all the way through the book, easy to read and think about. A keeper.
Here is one of my favorite quotes from it and very sound advice and why I do not really read a lot of First person present tense romantasy.
"If the author and characters know a secret and only the reader is left in the dark, that is a needless mystery."
— Elizabeth McCracken
McCracken was a teacher at Iowa University and is now in Texas. She's a great teacher of creative writing and this book has lots of interesting ideas on which to think. I am much more orderly than she is, a planner, and she is not. She believes in the creative unconscious though and so do I, but I enjoy writing more if I think about it a lot before I write, say like Iris Murdoch and dozens of other famous writers. She is perhaps a stylist who is more interested in the spatial. Some of it I could not decide. I did listen to a podcast with her which explained much more about how she approached writing stories. But I very much enjoyed reading her thoughts which are "put out" in little entries all the way through the book, easy to read and think about. A keeper.
Here is one of my favorite quotes from it and very sound advice and why I do not really read a lot of First person present tense romantasy.
"If the author and characters know a secret and only the reader is left in the dark, that is a needless mystery."
— Elizabeth McCracken
December 19, 2025
4.5 out of 5 ⭐️
This author is very quotable and thought provoking in her prose. I loved that this book striped away the idea that writing is only for certain people and that there really is no place for shame, but to just do it. Whenever, however, wherever you feel inspired. This book was very quotable and I enjoyed listening to the authors narration of the audiobook.
This author is very quotable and thought provoking in her prose. I loved that this book striped away the idea that writing is only for certain people and that there really is no place for shame, but to just do it. Whenever, however, wherever you feel inspired. This book was very quotable and I enjoyed listening to the authors narration of the audiobook.
January 18, 2026
It took 30 or so pages to get to the topic of writing, and there are some really good gems in here so I think it's a worthwhile read, but it's kind of disjointed, disorganized, and while there ends up being some great advice, it's mostly just random thoughts. That doesn't necessarily make it bad, just strays off topic.
December 30, 2025
Sometimes you want a book to feel like a companion that you can rely on when the going gets tough and writing fiction sure can be such an endeavor. “Will I think of this again? Will it haunt me?” McCracken guides us to ask the right questions about ourselves and what we want on the page & sometimes that means being in a state of panic but know that liberation will arrive by the end. You have survived. Move forward.
December 20, 2025
I love this little book.
December 31, 2025
The art of knowing the rules of writing fiction, knowing when to break them, and when to be realistic about the craft. Be a genius who has much to learn!
Highly recommend this book!
Highly recommend this book!
January 2, 2026
Good stuff to think about like - writing is fathoming a character. See how deep you can plumb.
Plot is not events of a story but the consequences of events in a story.
Eliminate conjunctions - and, but, because. This lets the reader see/figure out the connection and makes for stronger writing: I haven’t heard from my son the six months he’s toured the Baltic, but I know he loves me.
I haven’t heard from my son the six months he’s toured the Baltic. I know he loves me.
Plot is not events of a story but the consequences of events in a story.
Eliminate conjunctions - and, but, because. This lets the reader see/figure out the connection and makes for stronger writing: I haven’t heard from my son the six months he’s toured the Baltic, but I know he loves me.
I haven’t heard from my son the six months he’s toured the Baltic. I know he loves me.
January 10, 2026
Definitely something I will come back to again and again.
November 21, 2025
My thanks to NetGalley and Ecco for an advance copy of this book that states that it is a book on writing and tapping into one's creativity, however the lessons taught, and the way the author teaches readers to look at the world, can really make for a better life, as well as a productive one in the arts.
I had always planned that I would be an author, not world famous, but the kind of author that readers could always count on for a good couple of hours reading. I have many authors that I have long thought of like this, some famous, but most midlist, working hard, and nine times out of ten delivering stories that make me happy for short periods of time. This dream has not come true, probably due to a lack of confidence, a lack of drive, and in all honesty probably a lack of talent. This has not stopped me from reading entire libraries of books about writing. How to write, why to write, cure depression by writing, lose weight by writing. From famous writers, famous teachers, and people who aren't known, but have made their way with words. Some have been helpful, many have been familiar, some have been awful. Few have really stayed with me. Elmore Leonard telling one to never start with weather. Jack Chalker starting at the end and moving back. This book however is about more than writing, more than putting words on the page. This is more a guide to writing a life that one wants, and how hard it is, and even worse, how long it might take. But the results are worth it. A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction by writer and teacher Elizabeth McCracken is a book of hints, a book of lessons, a way of looking at writing, the world or writers, and the mindset that one needs, a mindset that can be used for more than fostering creativity.
The book is broken into sections and those sections into chapters. The chapters range in length from a few lines to longer sections. Almost as if someone were gathering file cards about how they write, and how they have taught others about writing. To call them notes is to miss their importance. McCracken looks at writing through her own world, a view of both a writer of best-selling fiction and memoir, and as an educator who has taught writing. And takes pride in the works that McCracken's students have presented to the world. McCracken looks at everything. Getting ideas, working ideas, and even more importantly, how to jettison some ideas. How to make characters not only look on the page, but how they walk, how they feel, and why should a reader care about them, even if they are in there only for a few pages. Time is also something that McCracken likes to discuss. Sometimes life is not obliging about time. If it takes one a while to work, well that's the way it is going to be. Rushing is not good, nor putting more pressure on oneself. Find a pace, and let they be your pace.
What I like most is that there are no strict lessons. If one wants to be a author who starts at 5am works till noon, and stops, fine. If one can only work at night after working two doubles and taking care of a family, fine. This is about writing, and about he person doing it. Lessons are helpful, not hindering, nor to make one feel bad. The love of writing is always quite clear in this book. McCracken enjoys reading, writing and educating others, taking pride in the work of students, and wishing that McCracken had a hand in helping more. The style is quite nice. And different. One can read this through, or treat it like a book of days, reading a chapter here, and a chapter there. I could see where some of these notes would give a person a lot to think about during the day. And help with their work.
A book that is about more than writing, more about looking at the world and trying to make the creative life more a part of the life being lived. I really liked a lot about this book, mostly the positive thoughts. Writing is a solitary sport, McCracken makes it something bigger and better. And is more than willing to cheer one on, no matter how long it takes. A great gift for writers, and for people having a hard time in this world. I look forward to reading more by McCracken.
I had always planned that I would be an author, not world famous, but the kind of author that readers could always count on for a good couple of hours reading. I have many authors that I have long thought of like this, some famous, but most midlist, working hard, and nine times out of ten delivering stories that make me happy for short periods of time. This dream has not come true, probably due to a lack of confidence, a lack of drive, and in all honesty probably a lack of talent. This has not stopped me from reading entire libraries of books about writing. How to write, why to write, cure depression by writing, lose weight by writing. From famous writers, famous teachers, and people who aren't known, but have made their way with words. Some have been helpful, many have been familiar, some have been awful. Few have really stayed with me. Elmore Leonard telling one to never start with weather. Jack Chalker starting at the end and moving back. This book however is about more than writing, more than putting words on the page. This is more a guide to writing a life that one wants, and how hard it is, and even worse, how long it might take. But the results are worth it. A Long Game: Notes on Writing Fiction by writer and teacher Elizabeth McCracken is a book of hints, a book of lessons, a way of looking at writing, the world or writers, and the mindset that one needs, a mindset that can be used for more than fostering creativity.
The book is broken into sections and those sections into chapters. The chapters range in length from a few lines to longer sections. Almost as if someone were gathering file cards about how they write, and how they have taught others about writing. To call them notes is to miss their importance. McCracken looks at writing through her own world, a view of both a writer of best-selling fiction and memoir, and as an educator who has taught writing. And takes pride in the works that McCracken's students have presented to the world. McCracken looks at everything. Getting ideas, working ideas, and even more importantly, how to jettison some ideas. How to make characters not only look on the page, but how they walk, how they feel, and why should a reader care about them, even if they are in there only for a few pages. Time is also something that McCracken likes to discuss. Sometimes life is not obliging about time. If it takes one a while to work, well that's the way it is going to be. Rushing is not good, nor putting more pressure on oneself. Find a pace, and let they be your pace.
What I like most is that there are no strict lessons. If one wants to be a author who starts at 5am works till noon, and stops, fine. If one can only work at night after working two doubles and taking care of a family, fine. This is about writing, and about he person doing it. Lessons are helpful, not hindering, nor to make one feel bad. The love of writing is always quite clear in this book. McCracken enjoys reading, writing and educating others, taking pride in the work of students, and wishing that McCracken had a hand in helping more. The style is quite nice. And different. One can read this through, or treat it like a book of days, reading a chapter here, and a chapter there. I could see where some of these notes would give a person a lot to think about during the day. And help with their work.
A book that is about more than writing, more about looking at the world and trying to make the creative life more a part of the life being lived. I really liked a lot about this book, mostly the positive thoughts. Writing is a solitary sport, McCracken makes it something bigger and better. And is more than willing to cheer one on, no matter how long it takes. A great gift for writers, and for people having a hard time in this world. I look forward to reading more by McCracken.
January 18, 2026
If you are any kind of writer, Elizabeth McCracken has 280 points to make in her latest book. The esteemed novelist offers a wide array of suggestions, recommendations and hints on the ins and outs of the writing mind. Her engagement with the topic covers not only her long, celebrated career as a writer but also her years of teaching --- first at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the most influential writing program in the country, and recently at the University of Texas at Austin.
With salient revelations about everything from third-person narration to word selection to resources and inspirations, A LONG GAME gives everyone access to the hard-earned, genius-level knowledge that any artist could offer his or her community.
To quote a few:
“Your voice is merely the idiosyncratic linguistic habits, good and bad, that give you pleasure. Your own little indulgences, the way you form your thoughts, whether you like to repeat words or let your sentences go long or are careless, inconsistent with your commas. Voice comes from writing with an open ear and an open mind. It rises up from the page. It doesn’t descend from the ether.”
I find this to be such a delightful and stress-reducing way of thinking about how people put words and ideas together. Never has this topic been discussed in such clear and compassionate words.
“The body is a fact: let characters react to facts. Fiction could do with a little more farting: every [one] is a surprise, a failure, a joke, an event. I say that knowing that there are readers and writers who can’t abide by what they might call bathroom humor. I once received a rejection note from The Paris Review that described my ‘scatology’ as ‘uninteresting.’ Not all of my advice is helpful.”
Giving such advice and then pointing out that it might not be helpful is a charming way of saying that every writer is a human being with their own wants and humor and ways of acting. As McCracken gives permission for writers to take bodily functions seriously and comically as part of their work (I bet The Paris Review never gave John Updike or Henry Miller a hard time about their scatology), she recognizes that it may not bring success, so use with caution.
Like Strunk and White, McCracken offers up advice about punctuation and proper sentence structure, only to shred that same idea in another numbered note. She makes me think of a professor who once told me that you can’t write ULYSSES until you can produce a bad haiku. McCracken wants everyone to realize that all things come with time and experience. There is nothing like a born writer, per se, who writes perfect prose, dialogue or poetry from the get-go. As much as she understands the need to grasp the function of grammar and structure, she has learned by trade that sometimes the best thing one can do is to go well outside those boundaries to invent something new. But knowing what those boundaries are is the ticket to being able to tear them all down. A very wise statement, indeed.
It is refreshing and stimulating to read the words of a seasoned writer, a woman no less, who has made an impact on the literary landscape and believes in sharing that experience with those who are trying to wrest their way into this world. At a crazy time like this, it is wonderful to find a guide like A LONG GAME. There is nothing more important than documenting one’s time and the feelings of those who don’t have the chance to speak for themselves.
Elizabeth McCracken gives all who wish to try a lot of sage leadership in the most human of pursuits --- telling stories in order to understand how the world works. It’s imperative that the arts stay in the picture, now and forever.
Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
With salient revelations about everything from third-person narration to word selection to resources and inspirations, A LONG GAME gives everyone access to the hard-earned, genius-level knowledge that any artist could offer his or her community.
To quote a few:
“Your voice is merely the idiosyncratic linguistic habits, good and bad, that give you pleasure. Your own little indulgences, the way you form your thoughts, whether you like to repeat words or let your sentences go long or are careless, inconsistent with your commas. Voice comes from writing with an open ear and an open mind. It rises up from the page. It doesn’t descend from the ether.”
I find this to be such a delightful and stress-reducing way of thinking about how people put words and ideas together. Never has this topic been discussed in such clear and compassionate words.
“The body is a fact: let characters react to facts. Fiction could do with a little more farting: every [one] is a surprise, a failure, a joke, an event. I say that knowing that there are readers and writers who can’t abide by what they might call bathroom humor. I once received a rejection note from The Paris Review that described my ‘scatology’ as ‘uninteresting.’ Not all of my advice is helpful.”
Giving such advice and then pointing out that it might not be helpful is a charming way of saying that every writer is a human being with their own wants and humor and ways of acting. As McCracken gives permission for writers to take bodily functions seriously and comically as part of their work (I bet The Paris Review never gave John Updike or Henry Miller a hard time about their scatology), she recognizes that it may not bring success, so use with caution.
Like Strunk and White, McCracken offers up advice about punctuation and proper sentence structure, only to shred that same idea in another numbered note. She makes me think of a professor who once told me that you can’t write ULYSSES until you can produce a bad haiku. McCracken wants everyone to realize that all things come with time and experience. There is nothing like a born writer, per se, who writes perfect prose, dialogue or poetry from the get-go. As much as she understands the need to grasp the function of grammar and structure, she has learned by trade that sometimes the best thing one can do is to go well outside those boundaries to invent something new. But knowing what those boundaries are is the ticket to being able to tear them all down. A very wise statement, indeed.
It is refreshing and stimulating to read the words of a seasoned writer, a woman no less, who has made an impact on the literary landscape and believes in sharing that experience with those who are trying to wrest their way into this world. At a crazy time like this, it is wonderful to find a guide like A LONG GAME. There is nothing more important than documenting one’s time and the feelings of those who don’t have the chance to speak for themselves.
Elizabeth McCracken gives all who wish to try a lot of sage leadership in the most human of pursuits --- telling stories in order to understand how the world works. It’s imperative that the arts stay in the picture, now and forever.
Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
February 5, 2026
Writing is a long game. That’s all I ever wanted to impart to my students. What matters is that you learn to get work done in the way that is possible for you, through consistency or panic. Through self-recrimination or self-delusion or self-forgiveness: every life needs all three."
What a treat it would be to study writing with Elizabeth McCracken, the great American writer. Novels, short-story and nonfiction memoirist, she is also a teacher at the James Michener Center in Texas an at the Iowa Workshop (and will be at Bread Loaf this year, as well!) In this slim book, we get 280 of her thoughts, little mediations and vignettes, about writing. The art of writing, she says is always changing and there is such a thing as good writing beyond taste. But that said, she is resisting and pushing back at all the stale rules that writers have been taught for decades. Show don't tell and write what you know... it’s hogwash, she says-- and these rules might account for the way that so much literary fiction coming out of the US is predictable and stale (that is my opinion, at least).
I absolutely loved what she said about realism. It’s ironic that literary realism is promoting a version of time and human consciousness that are not born out in our lived experiences or by science. Our minds don't work that way, she says and neither does time.
Writing is like life itself. This is a long game and we have to learn to forgive ourselves to experiment and try different things. I was really struck by what she said about physicality: about how you want characters in the room, on the ground, obeying the same laws of physics as we do and she gives this wonderful "mindfulness" exercise. She tells us to remember a headache or an earache think about how you held your head to accommodate the pain. Always give your character something to do .... Pruning roses, bearing a body, cooking a meal, having sex.
This is a fantastic craft book that does not use other books or literature to illustrate points, in the style of most craft books, but instead compares the points she is making to life itself, her thinking about art, and to her own life experiences.
Highly recommend!
What a treat it would be to study writing with Elizabeth McCracken, the great American writer. Novels, short-story and nonfiction memoirist, she is also a teacher at the James Michener Center in Texas an at the Iowa Workshop (and will be at Bread Loaf this year, as well!) In this slim book, we get 280 of her thoughts, little mediations and vignettes, about writing. The art of writing, she says is always changing and there is such a thing as good writing beyond taste. But that said, she is resisting and pushing back at all the stale rules that writers have been taught for decades. Show don't tell and write what you know... it’s hogwash, she says-- and these rules might account for the way that so much literary fiction coming out of the US is predictable and stale (that is my opinion, at least).
I absolutely loved what she said about realism. It’s ironic that literary realism is promoting a version of time and human consciousness that are not born out in our lived experiences or by science. Our minds don't work that way, she says and neither does time.
Writing is like life itself. This is a long game and we have to learn to forgive ourselves to experiment and try different things. I was really struck by what she said about physicality: about how you want characters in the room, on the ground, obeying the same laws of physics as we do and she gives this wonderful "mindfulness" exercise. She tells us to remember a headache or an earache think about how you held your head to accommodate the pain. Always give your character something to do .... Pruning roses, bearing a body, cooking a meal, having sex.
This is a fantastic craft book that does not use other books or literature to illustrate points, in the style of most craft books, but instead compares the points she is making to life itself, her thinking about art, and to her own life experiences.
Highly recommend!
February 4, 2026
This craft book by Elizabeth McCracken has been life changing to me as a writer. I won a copy of it in a Goodreads giveaway (thanks Ecco books and Goodreads) and also received a galley from NetGalley. I have read it twice which is why it has taken me so long to review.
First, this book is very approachable and easy to read. McCracken really is an exceptional writer (I can see why she wrote a book about writing), but each chapter is broken down into line break sections based on each “note” about writing fiction. So as a reader, you can pick it up to read a few of the notes, and put in down with an easy stopping point. It’s funny and authentic, well-written without being pretentious.
What I like most is how McCracken dispenses advice critical to forming your identity as a writer based on real experience of her own and her students, as well as other writers. A constant theme is that there is no one way to be a writer— you don’t necessarily have to write everyday or outline or be the best plotter— but the best way to figure out if a piece works is by writing it. That sounds so basic, but as a writer, I need to hear that a lot.
McCracken also gives some great strategies on motivating to write. Do you have an overwhelming sense of self-loathing if you aren’t writing? Good, use it! Grudges? Maybe worth examining and mining into fiction. Not sure if an idea is worth writing? Write it and see. You’ll get stuck any way, so utilize any method you can like switching to handwriting or reading it out loud. Give yourself permission to write the bad drafts.
I underlined so much. There are so many helpful lines in this book. This is a great craft book if you’ve read others, taken writing classes, etc. because it’s a new perspective and voice on the issue. It isn’t a “here’s a 10 step plan to write your novel”, it’s how to live and write as a fiction writer.
I cannot say enough about this book and how it’s helped my own writing life. I recommend to anyone who is even fiction writing curious. Thank you for writing this book, Elizabeth McCracken.
First, this book is very approachable and easy to read. McCracken really is an exceptional writer (I can see why she wrote a book about writing), but each chapter is broken down into line break sections based on each “note” about writing fiction. So as a reader, you can pick it up to read a few of the notes, and put in down with an easy stopping point. It’s funny and authentic, well-written without being pretentious.
What I like most is how McCracken dispenses advice critical to forming your identity as a writer based on real experience of her own and her students, as well as other writers. A constant theme is that there is no one way to be a writer— you don’t necessarily have to write everyday or outline or be the best plotter— but the best way to figure out if a piece works is by writing it. That sounds so basic, but as a writer, I need to hear that a lot.
McCracken also gives some great strategies on motivating to write. Do you have an overwhelming sense of self-loathing if you aren’t writing? Good, use it! Grudges? Maybe worth examining and mining into fiction. Not sure if an idea is worth writing? Write it and see. You’ll get stuck any way, so utilize any method you can like switching to handwriting or reading it out loud. Give yourself permission to write the bad drafts.
I underlined so much. There are so many helpful lines in this book. This is a great craft book if you’ve read others, taken writing classes, etc. because it’s a new perspective and voice on the issue. It isn’t a “here’s a 10 step plan to write your novel”, it’s how to live and write as a fiction writer.
I cannot say enough about this book and how it’s helped my own writing life. I recommend to anyone who is even fiction writing curious. Thank you for writing this book, Elizabeth McCracken.
January 2, 2026
THIS IS A BOOK THAT DISPENSES ADVICE, COMPOSED by a writer of fiction. As with any such book or craft talk or social media rant or workshop critique, a lot of it is hogwash. I’m talking to myself. That’s all writers really do.
•••
ORDINARILY, I DON'T THINK OF A PARTICULAR audience when I write. Posterity, perhaps. But not the reader or a reader or any real-world friend, no matter how close.
•••
I try not to dispense imperatives. All my advice contradicts itself.
•••
NO WRITING IS WASTED. EVEN WHAT WE THROW out is progress.
•••
TERRIBLE THINGS NEED NOT HAPPEN TO YOU, IN order to be a writer. Terrible things will happen to you, if you are a human. You needn't write about these things on purpose. You will probably write about them eventually, one way or the other.
•••
Ambition in fiction is merely the willingness to make mistakes. Mistakes are essential.
•••
When I despair or doubt, I tell myself that I am an artist. That is both highfalutin and modest: it gains me nothing. It promises nothing. But it puts me back inside me, where art occurs, and nothing is quantifiable.
•••
IF YOU'RE NOT AFRAID OF FAILING AS A WRITER, it means you haven't risked enough. Or you might be a sociopath. There are some good writers who are sociopaths.
•••
Writing anything and expecting somebody else to read it is an act of hubris, but nothing good can be written without persistent doubts, one of the paradoxes of a writing life. I don't believe that I have ever taught anyone to write. Every writer in the end is an autodidact. It's a lifelong course of study, or should be. You must believe that you are the only person for this job, which is a fact.
— Elizabeth McCracken / A Long Game: Notes on Writing
•••
ORDINARILY, I DON'T THINK OF A PARTICULAR audience when I write. Posterity, perhaps. But not the reader or a reader or any real-world friend, no matter how close.
•••
I try not to dispense imperatives. All my advice contradicts itself.
•••
NO WRITING IS WASTED. EVEN WHAT WE THROW out is progress.
•••
TERRIBLE THINGS NEED NOT HAPPEN TO YOU, IN order to be a writer. Terrible things will happen to you, if you are a human. You needn't write about these things on purpose. You will probably write about them eventually, one way or the other.
•••
Ambition in fiction is merely the willingness to make mistakes. Mistakes are essential.
•••
When I despair or doubt, I tell myself that I am an artist. That is both highfalutin and modest: it gains me nothing. It promises nothing. But it puts me back inside me, where art occurs, and nothing is quantifiable.
•••
IF YOU'RE NOT AFRAID OF FAILING AS A WRITER, it means you haven't risked enough. Or you might be a sociopath. There are some good writers who are sociopaths.
•••
Writing anything and expecting somebody else to read it is an act of hubris, but nothing good can be written without persistent doubts, one of the paradoxes of a writing life. I don't believe that I have ever taught anyone to write. Every writer in the end is an autodidact. It's a lifelong course of study, or should be. You must believe that you are the only person for this job, which is a fact.
— Elizabeth McCracken / A Long Game: Notes on Writing
January 24, 2026
The volume I am reading from the library is full of post it notes. I appreciate the unique way the author numbers each 'teachable point'. I am eager to share with my writing friends, to discuss what I'm *learning and *** exercises to do:
#67 With their-person narrators you can write deeply about characters who wouldn't tell their own stories, or can't, who have no interest or lack the language.
#108 Your own interest is what's important...what matters, cannot be faked, is the animating spirit.
#136 Your character's head is a setting; so is your character's body.
#137 If you don't know what a character should do, put yourself in the character's body. ..their physicality is just another way to see.
#138 Gesture is evidence that your harsher excise; readers see and believe in them. Gestures are communications if they are having trouble talking.
#142 Interiority - you don't need to write about it, you just need to know it.
#143 how does interiority manifest - "Let us see."
#146 Setting as context; have a sense of what space a character is moving through
* #169 Punctuation is a way to get your reader to hear the music of your prose. Not every piece is written in the same key or with the same time signature.
*** #173 - an exercise - "What can happened next?" top of page then write a long list of answers
* #176 Demarcation - some writers don't use it- Irish and Spanish. Quotation marks are lenses; they pull into focus what my character says... I add gesture and setting and physicality and verbs of attribution. this is what turns talk into dialogue.
#177 Attribute dialogue close the the start of an utterance, or not at all.
* #179 resist adverbs 'tell us not what things might be or almost do, but what they are.'
seems...perhaps. somehow, nearly, almost, kind of , sort of,
Author tries to ameliorate Improe) with I think, in my opinion, perhaps.
***#188 Metaphors - practise until you are better at them. using them feels neurological, not analytical.
#204 "Only the specific can radiate out into the universe."
#67 With their-person narrators you can write deeply about characters who wouldn't tell their own stories, or can't, who have no interest or lack the language.
#108 Your own interest is what's important...what matters, cannot be faked, is the animating spirit.
#136 Your character's head is a setting; so is your character's body.
#137 If you don't know what a character should do, put yourself in the character's body. ..their physicality is just another way to see.
#138 Gesture is evidence that your harsher excise; readers see and believe in them. Gestures are communications if they are having trouble talking.
#142 Interiority - you don't need to write about it, you just need to know it.
#143 how does interiority manifest - "Let us see."
#146 Setting as context; have a sense of what space a character is moving through
* #169 Punctuation is a way to get your reader to hear the music of your prose. Not every piece is written in the same key or with the same time signature.
*** #173 - an exercise - "What can happened next?" top of page then write a long list of answers
* #176 Demarcation - some writers don't use it- Irish and Spanish. Quotation marks are lenses; they pull into focus what my character says... I add gesture and setting and physicality and verbs of attribution. this is what turns talk into dialogue.
#177 Attribute dialogue close the the start of an utterance, or not at all.
* #179 resist adverbs 'tell us not what things might be or almost do, but what they are.'
seems...perhaps. somehow, nearly, almost, kind of , sort of,
Author tries to ameliorate Improe) with I think, in my opinion, perhaps.
***#188 Metaphors - practise until you are better at them. using them feels neurological, not analytical.
#204 "Only the specific can radiate out into the universe."
December 2, 2025
A Long Game is a book about writing fiction, by Elizabeth McCracken, known genius and national treasure. This is not a normal handbook or manual. It's a goddamn Bible for literary fiction writers. It's got a million chapters; some are short lyrical bombshells, and some are technical analyses of specific topics on mechanical craft. It's poetic and personal, it's smart, it's honest, and it's also, all the while, wildly entertaining.
I listened to the audiobook. Look, I have been a fan of Elizabeth McCracken for a long time. I love her fiction, her wit online -- she is #goals. If she were coming to my town, and I were a crazy person with no sense of boundaries, I would definitely invite her to come to my house and hang out. I might even ask her to talk for eleven hours straight, following me around as I fold my laundry and walk my dog, teaching me about storytelling, telling me little secrets about herself, reminding me I can do hard things, reprimanding me for cowardice. But now I don't have to impose on her like that, because I have this gem of an audiobook in my pocket. It was like comfort food, vitamins, and a boot to my ass, in perfect rotating turns.
Apologies to anyone who's mid-draft on a craft book about writing literary fiction. You can halt production. Go out and garden, drink a beer -- your work is now unnecessary. Elizabeth McCracken has given us everything we need. This book will pet your hair and then pull your chair out from under you without warning. Damn! I am both motivated and shook. A Long Game is perfect.
I listened to the audiobook. Look, I have been a fan of Elizabeth McCracken for a long time. I love her fiction, her wit online -- she is #goals. If she were coming to my town, and I were a crazy person with no sense of boundaries, I would definitely invite her to come to my house and hang out. I might even ask her to talk for eleven hours straight, following me around as I fold my laundry and walk my dog, teaching me about storytelling, telling me little secrets about herself, reminding me I can do hard things, reprimanding me for cowardice. But now I don't have to impose on her like that, because I have this gem of an audiobook in my pocket. It was like comfort food, vitamins, and a boot to my ass, in perfect rotating turns.
Apologies to anyone who's mid-draft on a craft book about writing literary fiction. You can halt production. Go out and garden, drink a beer -- your work is now unnecessary. Elizabeth McCracken has given us everything we need. This book will pet your hair and then pull your chair out from under you without warning. Damn! I am both motivated and shook. A Long Game is perfect.
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