Fierce Planet

Initially it is always the country’s dissidents and marginalized who bear the brunt of surveillance, leaving those who support the government or are merely apathetic to mistakenly believe that they are immune. And history shows us that the mere existence of a mass surveillance apparatus, regardless of how it is used is in itself sufficient to stifle dissent. A citizenry that is aware of always being watched quickly becomes a compliant and fearful one

Get through a draft as quickly as possible. Hard to know the shape of the thing until you have a draft. Literally, when I wrote the last page of my first draft of Lincoln’s Melancholy I thought, Oh, shit, now I get the shape of this. But I had wasted years, literally years, writing and re-writing the first third to first half. The old writer’s rule applies: Have the courage to write badly.