Catch & Release

Catch & Release

Writing a Dam Novel

and the perils of "arriving"

Ben Wakeman's avatar
Ben Wakeman
May 20, 2025
∙ Paid

There’s a strange thing that happens when you learn how to do something hard. You think you’ve arrived, and arriving is kind of terrible because it means there’s nowhere left to go. Arriving for an artist of any kind is tantamount to death.

When I say “arriving” I don’t mean having a best-selling novel because 99% of us will never experience that. I mean…

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