If I was meant to write a hundred good sentences in the entirety of my life, I must write a billion, hoping to stumble to the hundred. To wait for genius was to waste it altogether. There was some of it in all of us. If I sat around waiting, I would wait my entire life. I had to write and keep writing. There is gold in me yet. It only shows up mixed with the rest, but it does show, and that is all we ever want. To not share the gold in you, no matter how little or how much was theft from the world. It was a gross injustice and a blatant crime. With this understanding, I only wish to write; I don’t wish to write the perfect sentence anymore, but god, I wish I knew how to stop trying.
And what if I run out of things to write? Then, I shall write about nothing, for no writer ever writes about anything after all. It is not the subject but the writing that says what is essential. It is pretty easy to talk about the important things; they are important already. Paint me a picture of a pebble, paint it with words and make me fall in love with it. Then, I shall lay down my pen and kneel before you, my life in my hands, ready to serve. To write about nothing in particular and to do it well is the mark of an exceptional writer. And when a friend asks me what I want to become, an advocate for the undiscussed is what comes to mind. Of course, I do not tell them this; I keep it to myself. My telling them who I aspire to be does nothing; my sitting at the desk every morning is what gets me there.
Like love, like all noble things, to chase greatness was to muddy it, to insult it. It was the most vulgar pursuit a person could indulge in, and yet, all writers did it. Despite their bold claims, all writers aspired to be great. Greatness greatly differed for all of them, naturally, for no two people look at a pebble and paint the same picture, but all of us chased it. For me, greatness is my hundred great sentences. If I can manage them, I will have made my mark. It seems to be a simple errand, but it is anything but routine, and yet, this routine churning of words was how you got there. To be a writer was to be a banal being who dreamt of greatness—a living contradiction.