Satie and Maupassant make me feel a little better about writing. Not because I want to emulate their work, not because I want to be like them. Satie wrote a lot of short pieces. Maupassant wrote a lot of short stories. Sometimes really short stories, a few pages long. Satie wrote piano pieces that are twenty, thirty seconds long.

I like my ideas; they push me to write them down before any thoughts of publishing or selling or adulation enter my head. But they usually sputter out after a few pages (or lines) and I always think I should add more, if for no other reason than to finish the thought. But usually the thought is finished. I’ve said what I wanted to say, I just have a hard time shaking the feeling that I owe posterity something more “literary”.