Maybe this is my long-standing prejudice against flash fiction, that the short-short form invites work that relies upon surprise rather than sustained suspense.
The first book I pulled from my stack was Ben Tanzer’s Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine. 172 pages (soaking wet), with an average-to-large typeface (if this book had been printed in Look at Me’s tiny typeface, it probably wouldn’t have cracked a dozen pages). And Tanzer writes in quick back-and-forth dialogue, short two-page chapters, so—in a world of constant disruption—I just figured this would make a nice confidence-building start to my 2012 reading life. That was the plan, anyway.
...there are thousands of blog entries and academic articles and craft essays in print and online that discuss the “writer’s process,” how we’re able to find the time in our busy schedules to sketch out stories and novels and memoirs, but so few consider the precious time that we devote to our reading lives.
It reminds me of the ways people used to react when I announced that I wanted to be a writer as a teenager. “Oh, so you want to teach English?” was the standard reply, or something similar about working for a newspaper, becoming a journalist.