"Providing a writer isn't put off by conventions - and some are - attending them can be a nice break from the necessary isolation of writing"
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There is a quiet dare tucked into Yarbro's aside: if you are the kind of writer who treats "conventions" as a contamination risk, you will miss one of the few socially sanctioned antidotes to the job's loneliness. The parenthetical "and some are" lands like a knowing shrug. It's not just observation; it's tribal commentary. Yarbro, a career genre writer with decades inside the convention ecosystem, has watched the posture-forming rituals up close: the literary snobbery, the introvert's dread, the fear that networking cheapens the work.
Her intent is pragmatic, almost caretaking. She reframes the convention not as a marketing circus but as a pressure valve. "Necessary isolation" is the key phrase: writing is solitary by design, not by accident. That necessity can harden into an identity, and Yarbro gently refuses to romanticize it. The subtext is that isolation is productive until it becomes self-mythology. Conventions puncture that myth with human contact, shop talk, and the reminder that the work has an audience and a community.
The sentence structure mirrors the argument. It begins with a condition (some writers can't stand conventions), then offers a modest reward ("a nice break") rather than a grand promise. No claims that conventions will make you famous, only that they can make the work sustainable. In an industry where the grind is private and the feedback loop is slow, that modesty is persuasive: it's not selling a dream, it's prescribing maintenance.
Her intent is pragmatic, almost caretaking. She reframes the convention not as a marketing circus but as a pressure valve. "Necessary isolation" is the key phrase: writing is solitary by design, not by accident. That necessity can harden into an identity, and Yarbro gently refuses to romanticize it. The subtext is that isolation is productive until it becomes self-mythology. Conventions puncture that myth with human contact, shop talk, and the reminder that the work has an audience and a community.
The sentence structure mirrors the argument. It begins with a condition (some writers can't stand conventions), then offers a modest reward ("a nice break") rather than a grand promise. No claims that conventions will make you famous, only that they can make the work sustainable. In an industry where the grind is private and the feedback loop is slow, that modesty is persuasive: it's not selling a dream, it's prescribing maintenance.
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| Topic | Writing |
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