A lot of what I'm having to do to get myself weaned from football is really limit what media I allow myself to consume. And it's a big drag. But it's also the only way to kick the habit.

I happen to love football so much and hate myself for loving it.

I want to view my own efforts to write a novel as a function of my own artistic aspirations rather than a good career move. And I need to learn how to commit to characters for a longer time, to confront the limits of my own capacities for attention and compassion. That's what a writing career does, in the best instance: it allows you to keep after what you can't do.

I have a hard time defending the production of candy, given that it is basically crack for children and makes them dependent in unwholesome ways.

Much as I love stories, I think I'll only be satisfied with myself as a writer if I'm able to produce a novel that feels publishable. The books that truly take me away - for weeks at a time - are all novels.

I'm going to proportion more time to organizing and taking action and less time to passively consuming news that is dispiriting me. Part of this will be to get off social media. I know social media is just a tool, but we've been using it in a way that has transformed us from a nation into an audience, passively spectating our own ruin.

If you want to fight a cult, you've got to form a cult.