The Lamp and the Mirror

Writers usually start out as lamps.

They have ideas, they have images, they have emotions, and they want to shine these things out into the world, sometimes frantically, sometimes hopelessly, trying to reach as many readers as they can.

They write and they write and they write and then they submit and submit and submit — and, if they self-publish, they spam and they spam and they spam, desperately beaming their work as far and as wide as possible.