The fun→dread composition arc — Wallace's own account of what writing IJ-scale fiction costs
echoes
From: The Nature of the Fun
- Early text: the arc from "In the beginning, when you first start
out trying to write fiction, the whole endeavor’s about fun" through
"attempted seduction is hard work, and its fun is offset by a terrible fear
of rejection", the vanity that is "lethal" past its necessary minimum, and the
"double bind" that "can keep you stuck inside yourself for months or even
years", out to the fun "transfigured by the unpleasantness of vanity and
fear" and "disciplined fun is more fun than impulsive or hedonistic fun."
[the central arc] [e-text]
- IJ echo: The documented fun→dread arc of IJ's composition (the well-known
Wallace testimony that the writing turned from fun to dread) — this essay is
its published, first-person nonfiction statement, and its resolution
("disciplined fun") rhymes with the novel's own valorization of discipline and
attention as the way through (Schtitt/ETA; AA's one-day-at-a-time,
next-right-thing discipline).
- Weight: shared-preoccupation