Control Freaks in a Blizzard

This past week, a wonderful NYT-bestselling author, who's been in the business for decades, commented on the inherent irony that publishing is an industry in which nobody really has any control, but just about everyone involved (from editors to writers, etc.) are "overachieving control freaks." I couldn't help but find that painfully funny...and unbelievably accurate.

And then, this morning, a writer on one of my loops pointed us toward this essay by Dani Shapiro. In it, Shapiro quotes a numbe...