Take What You Want And Pay For

Everyone Else We Knew Growing Up Is The Same: Image Of Their Parents, No Matter How Loud They Told Themselves They'd Be Different

Now Death Is Uncool, Old-fashioned. To My Mind The Defining Characteristic Of Our Era Is Spin, Everything Tailored To Vanishing Point By Market Research, Brands And Bands Manufactured To Precise Specifications; We Are So Used To Things Transmuting Into Whatever We Would Like Them To Be That It Comes As A Profound Outrage To Encounter Death, Stubbornly Unspinnable, Only And Immutably Itself.

We Think About Mortality So Little, These Days, Except To Flail Hysterically At It With Trendy Forms Of Exercise And High-fiber Cereals And Nicotine Patches.

I Listen To The Things People Want Out Of Love These Days And They Blow My Mind. I Go To The Pub With The Boys From The Squad And Listen While They Explain, With Minute Precision, Exactly What Shape A Woman Should Be, What Bits She Should Shave How, What Acts She Should Perform On Which Date And What She Should Always Or Never Do Or Say Or Want; I Eavesdrop On Women In Cafes While They Reel Off Lists Of Which Jobs A Man Is Allowed, Which Cars, Which Labels, Which Flowers And Restaurants And Gemstones Get The Stamp Of Approval, And I Want To Shout, Are You People Out Of Your Tiny Minds?

If You're Writing A Scene For A Character With Whom You Disagree In Every Way, You Still Need To Show How That Character Is Absolutely Justified In His Or Her Own Mind, Or The Scene Will Come Across As Being About The Author's Views Rather Than About The Character's.