You Between the Lines

by Katie Naymon

So yes, I want to be a writer. But not the annoying kind. It feels like most writers are very, very annoying—particularly the population of straight, white literary men. The kind that everyone hates but craves approval from anyway. You know the type. The guys with three names—David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Safran Foer. I haven’t read anything by them and I won’t. Maybe because I’m in high school and, quite frankly, have better things to do than read Infinite Jest.

He looks better, but I don’t tell him that.

Subtle hints she likes him

It’s all very good, with a few sentences that make me so absolutely bitter I didn’t come up with them first.

“Pity. Have you considered medicating?” “Oh, I’m medicated. Just not for this.”

The way he’s looking at me, unblinking, is almost too much.

THE PROBLEM WITH WRITING WORKSHOPS is that there’s always one student who talks more than anyone else. Not because they actually have better insights, but because they like to hear themselves talk. In our group,