I lately think: why should I be a writer. There are hundreds of people--some just as young, some further along, some honed and ready--reading the same books as me, thinking what I'm thinking, who write more, write better, and won't indulge in self-reflexive blogposts like this one, who won't give their time and name to the void. Like I will; like I do.

What gives me the right to say: I write fiction. Because I like to think that writing is democratic. Because it's something I do sometimes--even though I haven't learned how to write a successful story; perhaps, with patience and grace, I will--and look, I'm doing it the stupid way, the way that might have abandoned, let shrivel the work itself, the way that pays no heed to the work, to doing the work, to having done work I can account for, and say: I write that. This is writing, and I am somewhere in here. My voice--if there is one--precedes any letting-speak. If I keep going, I might silence myself.

Someone once had the right, the worry, the taking-to-task to say:

supply the word "vulnerable," please, when I pause.