Day two of the new year, and I'm snowed in.
Which, I know, sounds like a perfect opportunity to work on my syllabi for the upcoming term, but I think instead I'm going to lie around and read. Because the non-essential thing most likely to bring me to tears over the course of a semester is how I spend – between teaching and editing -- *so much* of my time reading bad stories. It seriously hurts my heart, how I'm filling myself with crappy sentences on a regular basis. And I know I'm a good teacher, and a good editor, and that these stories and sentences sometimes get better, but the percentage of writing that actually *needs* to get better is very small. The leap from incoherent and uninteresting to clearer but still uninteresting is not a leap that always needs making. So today: Aimee Bender and Kevin Brockmeier. People who never make me reach for a pen when I'm reading them.
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