Stephen King wrote that a bad writer can become a good one, but a good writer will never become a great one. I can't begin to tell you how much pressure that took off me, and how many insulting rejection letters I've avoided by taking Mr. King's words to heart.
Still the path from being a bad writer to a good one remains long and winding, and I continue to experience night sweats over the next piece I pen proving that I am the fraud I've always feared myself to be.
Fatalism and dystopia are the two positive driving forces in my writing. Throughout my writing life those forces ha more...