someone on Bluesky has complained that this post talks about reading (including nonfiction) and then segues into talking about reading novels.

that is true, and also I am definitely not going to edit it. because…

1. hi, the way you can tell something isn’t written by AI is that it has the imprint of my brain (a novelist’s brain) on it

2. but really more importantly: I hate defensive writing. Writing where you can tell the person has spent a load of time being attacked on social media and tries to hedge for every single criticism. I know I really do this a bit, and goodness knows it’s useful to be corrected on errors of fact. But not on “hey you seem to be overly keen on novels, you should signpost that!”

3. I trust my readers to meet me. All writing is throwing a ball into the air and hoping someone will catch it. There are two of us involved in the act of writing and reading; both of us need to be generous with the understanding we offer for this to work.