Becoming an Expert

Becoming an Expert

I write a short story with coldness and dryness in mind, and I notice that I am already becoming an expert in this kind of narrative that does nothing but arouse disgusting feelings. I deprive it of any color, any liveliness, any emotion. I also forbid exclamations: I make astonishment an outsider. One word to describe the scene. Scarce adjectives. The arc of action, naturally, cruel. I finish the work, and the result is astonishing. I immediately think of Swift. And I then imagine myself banished from the Human Race and defamed for centuries of centuries.