Dave Eggers

And maybe somebody wants it, some, maybe somebody doesn't, but it's done.

And that's a palette cleanser for me when I'm working three years on the same book, it's feeling like you can finish something it's necessary because

I have a lot of friends that spent eight, nine, 10 years on a book.

And it's really tough to think about, like, you hope that that was worth the 10 years, but some fatal flaw could say, you know what?

Brilliant language.

Characters are fantastic, but there's something that's not working.

And all of that time, you might've been applying clay or whatever to the wrong interior structure.

And there's something that's wrong about it.

And I've had that experience where you're like, it looks like a book, it reads like a book, but somehow it doesn't take off.

Oh, for sure.

For every kind of art, every masterpiece is an accident.

Every one.

I think in the middle, sometimes you know you might be onto something, but then there's this like alchemy that happens where it's like, I have no idea why, why that song after this or why this particular book is resonating with people and this one isn't.

I think a lot of it has to do with letting it breathe, letting light into it, like through it, you know, like not trying to overstuff something.

And I think sometimes you think that you can

make it work by overworking it, you know?

Muscle through it.

Muscle through it.

And more words are going to fix it, you know?

Like, well, if I just explain a little bit more and add another hundred pages.