There’s a quote from Ursula Vernon that’s stuck with me, something I think I found in one of her Author’s Notes. “Inspiration knocks now and again, but spite bangs on the door all year long.”

That doesn’t ring fully true for me—my spite-writing is usually a rant or half-formed polemic in my journal, and I struggle to turn those into fiction—but it sparked a funny question for myself the other day.

Do I write like oysters make pearls?