Distilling Word-Wine into Literary Cognac
Writers are numerically confused and quantitatively torn—or maybe just hypocritical. We decry the unwillingness of people to read novels along with their affinity for Tweets. On the other hand, writers love to craft aphorisms, microessays, haikus, six-word memoirs and flash fiction (“For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn.”—Hemingway). So, how does one find the right number of words? Perhaps Antoine de Saint-Exupery had it right: “Perfection is achieved, not when there is noth
