I’m thinking of holding people accountable for it. I’ve been, at least, offering my services as a sort of NaNo WriMo complaints box. I’m hoping that people will write me letters — brief and poorly punctuated and spelled, due to the exhaustion — to complain that such and such a character simply will not do, or that so and so a passage has no direction. It is my hope in providing such a service that it will help the writers of my acquaintance to keep their spirits up by the knowledge of some care in people outside of themselves.

It may work. But, then again, it may be that I have entirely forgone reason and veered into realms of optimism, which is hardly the fashion.