I’ve come to the conclusion that writing is like the ancient Roman tradition of exposing a child. You give birth to this thing, which seems monstrous to you, and are horrified. Then you sort of abandon it on a mountaintop (or blog, editor’s desk, professor’s desk) and one part of you hopes no one ever sees the hideous offspring and that it dies peacefully, but the other part of you hopes that perhaps its not as malformed as you think. Perhaps some poor shepherd will take pity on it and rescue it from a quiet, lonely death. Then again, perhaps it will return to kill you, marry its mother, and destroy your way of life as you know it.
On second thought, writing is much more like kittens. Warm, fuzzy kittens.
