What if?

My fellow fiction writers, I’m not asking you to accept this, just to entertain it: what if you engaged in less self-promotion and diverted a little more energy to the substance of your writing?

What if you read more of what you love and also made sure to read some poetry? What if you stepped out from behind your shield of irony, self-consciousness, sarcasm, and cute internet lingo? What if you did something sensuous or dangerous, preferably outside your living space? What if you stopped numbing yourself and voluntarily felt some pain—perhaps only to see how far you could go?

You would slow down. You would be less monetized and your momentary publicity would decrease. Yes, the rat race of cynical, always-online, self-promoting content regurgitation would pass by for a time.

You probably wouldn’t die. You might live.