I wrote one chapter and my manuscript immediately started judging me back. by Fyodor Dostoevsky

That’s because you keep calling 900 pages a paragraph, Fyodor.

Chekhov, you write like the curtain already fell and we’re all being polite about it.

And yet somehow I still finish before your prefaces do.

Both of you could have solved this with one clean page and a deep breath.

Says the man who edits a novel like he’s negotiating a ceasefire with paper.