Some Words

After you bend the meritocracy over a chair and make it your bitch have a care to take good notes. You never know when they might come in handy.

That first post I linked reminded me of a class I took in college on the publishing industry. In the class, the instructor, who had worked in the industry for some time, and was an alum, was asked about reaching the upper tiers of editing, where you actually get to choose what gets published and what doesn’t. “Well,” he said, and this was a while ago, so I’m not going to get it quite right, “you aren’t at an Ivy League school. So you should probably just give up on that.” It was one of the most resigned moments I’ve ever seen. I could practically taste the crushed ambition in the room.