"I’ve got this friend who constantly, daily, harangues me for not writing enough.
"It’s justified; I don’t write enough. I’m forever saying to friends and clients, 'You must write every day. Every. Single. Day!' Yet I don’t do the
same.
"Nobody likes a hypocrite. Especially a hypocrite who even from his soapbox can’t see over the lip of the writing rut he’s in.
"This friend, on the other hand, writes more than anyone else I know. Every week he sends me a new novella or three new book
reviews and six essays. It’s super annoying.
"(You hear that, friend whom I know is reading this? You, sir, are annoying.)
"It’s as if he has 'Why don’t you write more?' permanently copied, and he pastes it all over my dumb ass every day in emails and
text messages. He even leaves me singing voicemails about how I don’t write enough. And about how my surname rhymes with 'manure' and 'sewer.' And every time he sends me new work of his own, I can just taste the implied 'And where’s your new writing, assface?'
"Here’s the gist of our typical exchange:
Him: Why aren’t you writing right now?
Me: I’m too busy.
Him: Will you write later?
Me: I’ll be too
busy.
[Hours pass.]
Him: What are you doing right now?
Me: Watching TV.
Him: You’re
just about the worst person on earth.
Me: ...
"A couple of weeks ago he turned off the vitriol (for a moment) and offered an intriguing idea: My new, and only, writing duty would be to send him one sentence per day. No more, no less. Just one per day."
