Overachievers don’t write, by Whitney Otto

Overachievers don’t generally become writers because the skill set is so different. If you want to be a writer, work on the finer points of gossip, eavesdropping and voyeurism; basically the pastimes of the underachiever. If you care to add smoking, drinking and carousing to your repertoire, you wouldn’t be the first.

If you aren’t compelled to write, because you’re maybe an overachieving future investment banker, then a paint-by-number approach might be the way to go, bookwise.

It would take an underachieving, gossipy, voyeuristic, bit of a slacker to write a genre novel capable of pulling away from the pack. In the writing life you can’t avoid failure. Or, to put it another way, someone who is driven to write is usually not the same sort of person who would work with an expensive college counselor.

A smart take on the Kaavya Viswanathan “scandal.”