Some Recent Writing

I think it’s interesting that you wrote in Fast Company that books are no longer what they used to be, that they are now branding devices and credibility signals. I’m not quite sure whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. I’m tempted to say it’s a bad thing for writers who are mostly concerned about producing a quality and enduring pieces of work.

However, it reminded me of something I read in the introduction to Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” When asked by many people how she felt about the fact that her book had been in print for 25 years, she echoed the sentiment of other authors claiming that writing for a particular movement or period of time would be fatal to the spirit of a writer.

She writes, “Novels, in the proper sense of the word, are not written to vanish in a month or a year. That most of them do, today, that they are written and published as if they were magazines, to fade as rapidly, is one of the sorriest aspects of today’s literature.”

Of course, you wrote strictly about non-fiction in your article. Nonetheless, I thought Rand’s idea is an interesting and relevant correlation, especially given what you wrote in “Trust Me, I’m Lying” about the way that blog posts are so short and ephemeral.