I suppose I don’t have a lot to affirm, except to think about this idea of word density in my prose. Whether I could improve—or really transform my writing by thinking through word density—the maybe object words versus other words. “Balloon” and “cake” and “cactus” and “garbage” versus a phrase like “covered the top of”—all the words between the objects. That’s an interesting distinction. There’s Rabbit’s sentence “Legs, shouts,” which captures it. But what about the importance of putting things in a place? What about the idea of spaces where scenes take place? What are the most immersive [literary] worlds I have been in? I think of Kawabata. I think of Hemingway. There is the world of the story, the physical world, then there is the mental world of the characters, the philosophical world/the world of ideas. There is the linguistic world. Language that pulls us out of the story but also language that creates the emotional world—but my brain doesn’t go there—or does it? Is that a place for the heart? Is that a different realm—it does seem different because it doesn’t transport the same way.