The world wants oatmeal. It is not my job to give the world oatmeal. It is my job not to be a hack. It is my job to try to make the world chew, lest … - Caitlín R. Kiernan

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The world wants oatmeal. It is not my job to give the world oatmeal. It is my job not to be a hack. It is my job to try to make the world chew, lest its lazy jaw muscles atrophy and its collective mandible withers and all its teeth fall out. It is my job, as a writer, to give the world toffee and peanut brittle and tough steak and celery. I write peanut butter sandwiches, not oatmeal. And every time some dolt whines, "I'm confused" or "I don't understand" or "This doesn't make any sense," I should smile and know that I'm doing my job. Not because it is my job to be opaque, but because it is not my job to be transparent.

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About Caitlín R. Kiernan

Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan (born 26 May 1964) is an Irish-born American author, paleontologist, and prolific blogger perhaps most famous for the novels The Drowning Girl: A Memoir and The Red Tree. Kiernan is a two-time recipient of both the World Fantasy and Bram Stoker awards.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Pen Names: Kathleen Tierney
Alternative Names: Caitlín Rebekah Kiernan Caitlin R. Kiernan Caitlin Rebekah Kiernan

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No outlines, ever. Well, except for that synopsis my publisher always insists on. But I consider those necessary evils, and when I begin writing I’ve usually forgotten whatever was in them. Hardly ever does a novel of mine turn out bearing any real semblance to those synopses. That’s part of the business of publishing, not a part of the process of writing. But why do I avoid outlines, well that gets back to writing at a sentence level. The story has not occurred until I write it. Only those broad strokes can exist in my mind and possess any inherent validity. “This will be a story set on Mars, and it’s about a woman looking for her lost lover.” That’s the best I can ever hope for, and I’ve learned that, and I don’t try to force anything more detailed.

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No story has a beginning, and no story has an end. Beginnings and endings may be conceived to serve a purpose, to serve a momentary and transient intent, but they are, in their fundamental nature, arbitrary and exist solely as a convenient construct in the minds of man. Lives are messy, and when we set out to relate them, or parts of them, we cannot ever discern precise and objective moments when any given event began. All beginnings are arbitrary.

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