Kindness, It Turns Out, Is Hard -

The Weird Thing Was That I Went To Trump Rallies Thinking I Was Going To Run Into Militant, Right Wing, Racist People And Mostly I Didn't. That Should Have Been A Clue To Me. The People I Talked To Were Not, On The Surface Level, Crazy. They Were Quite Nice, Quite Normal, Employed, And Actually Were Wealthier Than The Press At That Time Would Have Led Us To Believe. At That Time, The Narrative Was That These Were All Working Poor But These Were Not Working Poor. That Should've Been A Clue To Me That This Was A Little Bigger Than I Thought.

That Underscored This Idea That When We're Reading A Book Or Writing A Book, You're In An Act Of Co-creation. The Reader And The Writer Are Both Trying To Dress Up And Present Their Best Selves And Then There's That Moment, When Suddenly, As A Reader, You're Not Exactly You Anymore, And Likewise, As A Writer, You're Not Really You.

All Along, My Mantra Was: Don't Write Unless It Contributes To The Emotion, And Do Anything You Do In Service Of The Emotion Only.

As A Fiction Writer, One Of Things You Learn Is God Lives In Specificity. You Know, Human Kindness Is Increased As We Pursue Specificity.

Whether You're Eighteen Or Sixty, In A Certain Way, Whatever You Know Is Valid.