When I was in college, I took a writing course that required each student to turn in a one-page vignette every day of the week, except Saturday and Sunday. It was common for a student’s confidence to swell as he tossed off the first week’s worth of stories—as I remember, we didn’t hear an instructor’s opinion of our work until a couple of weeks had passed—and then, on about Tuesday or Wednesday of the second week, to roll a piece of blank paper into the typewriter and come to the sudden and devastating realization that seven one-page vignettes had used up his life experience.

CALVIN TRILLIN