Barrett’s Reviews > Yellowface > Status Update

A musician needs to be heard; a writer needs to be read. I want to move people’s hearts. I want my books in stores all over the world. I couldn’t stand to be like Mom and Rory, living their little and self-contained lives, with no great projects or prospects to propel them from one chapter to the next. I want the world to wait with bated breath for what I will say next

“
Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands. Writing gives you power to shape your own world when the real one hurts too much. To stop writing would kill me.
“
^ little heavy-handed June

Most authors will confess they hear an “inner editor,” an internal naysayer that nitpicks and hampers their attempts at first drafts…

Too trite. Too formulaic…

The rhythm’s off. That imagery doesn’t work. Seriously? Another em dash

I had the half-baked idea that if I couldn’t make it as a writer then at least I’d have a steady income as a programmer, until I realized that the programming market is also quickly becoming too saturated for anyone who isn’t a natural talent

There’s no need to dress it up. We are all vultures, and some of us—and I mean Athena, here—are simply better at finding the juiciest morsels of a story, at ripping through bone and gristle to the tender bleeding heart and putting all the gore on display.

There’s only a growing sense of dread and disappointment, until the bitterness becomes too much, until you start to feel stupid for believing that you could be an author at all.