Something in Literature by Mark Raney

Writing something for literature is like building a grand fence with homemade bricks, without the aid of a brick mold or a bubble level or a leveling string. Each day you mix the materials for that day’s brick, then you very carefully shape that brick. When you have finished, and if the materials have been properly mixed, and if the brick has been properly shaped, then you skillfully place it alongside the other bricks in your under construction fence. But if the materials have not been properly mixed, or if the brick has not been properly shaped, then you toss that brick onto the pile of other culled bricks, and tomorrow you begin all over again. In fact, either way, tomorrow you always begin all over again. And it is only after the hard work of a great many days of individually mixing and individually shaping and individually placing that your fence can be constructed. But it is only when the last brick has been skillfully placed, that your fence can be called completed. Only then can you stand away from your fence to see whether all the daily homemade bricks really do combine to produce a grand fence. If so, then you have written something for literature. If not, then you go to a different site, and tomorrow you begin again to mix the materials for a single brick.