Commonality doesn't inoculate against hurt.

Commonality doesn't inoculate against hurt.

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value.

Empathy is cloaked in our actions - as in, we might be experiencing empathy but not realize it's empathy.

I like thinking of the writer as a kind of curator; the collection as curiosity cabinet - in a non-demeaning, non-objectifying sense - but an array, a set of offerings.

Learning the edges or limits or sources of friction in empathy was one of the big issues for me.

Imagining someone else's pain with too much surety can be as damaging as failing to imagine it.