This is the most terrifying thing I’ve seen in a year

Ira Glass, on storytelling:

I watched this in stark terror the first time. This is me: post-Clarion, I am more than ever able to see and aspire to something and criticize myself for not being there. I write short stories and sit on them, I’ve been working on a book in semi-secret this year and only a couple people read the first chapter, after which I stopped sending pieces out. When I write something I really truly like, I have a weird impulse to stop immediately, put my hands up, say “that’s as good as it gets, I’m going to go learn acoustic guitar or something”.

So yeah. It’s weird, that interview’s been out for almost two years (which would have been a great time for me to see it) but watching it, I felt a lot like I did at Clarion, where if you’re very, very lucky like me, the lesson of the whole thing is the things you’re doing wrong are exactly what you’re most afraid you’ve been doing wrong, so now you have to fix them.

I want to go write.

One thought on “This is the most terrifying thing I’ve seen in a year

  1. Rod Ramsey

    Dude. Usurpers. Best story I’ve read this year. Really pulled me into it, I could feel the rain and King’s ferocity.

    Can’t wait for more.

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