hessian (HESH-uhn) adjective
1. A mercenary soldier or a ruffian.
2. Burlap.
The hardest lesson one can learn about writing is that no rules exist. Every time I feel stagnant with a premise, or bored with some dialogue, I seem to come across a book or play that's based in some alternate reality, or fuses dream-like images, or simply creates a world so different and interesting, I wonder if anyone else could have imagined it. What makes it a "hard" lesson, however, is not simply that it's difficult to locate or takes years to fully comprehend, but instead that writing without limits broadens the scope of general human existence to such a grand degree, fathoming the next step almost surely scratches the very action itself. Yes, there's the infamous "box" that separates all ideas into new and used, but my God, once outside the box, it's a frighteningly infinite universe.
I think a writer knows when they're writing something new and interesting--it's that moment when arm hairs tingle and the scribbling or typing stops and one thinks, "What in the hell just happened?" Sure, the next sentence might be total shit. But what you wrote before that: worth more than oil made from gold.
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