Der Ding An Sicht Dept.

At some point, I'm not exactly sure when, I started telling something to people who told me they wanted to be a writer: "Is that something you want to spend at least an hour a day doing for the rest of your life, whether or not a single other living soul on God's green earth gives a damn? If so, get in line; there's a million others waiting." (That said, I couldn't present you with statistics about how many of them find another hobby after such a speech.)

If it sounds gauche of me to discourag...