A surprisingly useful lesson from a family dinner in real life

I had a disappointing first try, a surprisingly good second try, and then a third attempt that taught me humility. So, naturally, I now have opinions.

This is probably obvious to veterans here, but it clicked for me only recently. libraries got easier when I stopped treating every attempt like a final exam.

I started this because my lunch break felt a little stuck, and fiction seemed like a manageable place to experiment. The funny part is that the smallest change was the one I kept