Henry James, you are a cool dude

12 336 words into my NaNoWriMo Novel.  This quote from Henry James' essay "The Art of Fiction" was very much welcome:


"This freedom [from conditions and rigid rules] is a splendid privilege, and the first lesson of the young novelist is to learn to be worthy of it. 'Enjoy it as it deserves (I should say to him): take possession of it, explore it to its utmost extent, publish it, rejoice in it. All life belongs to you, and do not listen to those who would shut you up into corners of it and tell you that it is only here and there that art inhabits, or to those who would persuade you that this heavenly messenger wings her way outside of life altogether, breathing a superfine air, and turning away her head from the truth of things...you have only to remember that talents so dissimilar as those of Alexandre Dumas and Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Gustave Flaubert have worked in this field with equal glory.  Do not think too much about optimism and pessimism; try and catch the colour of life itself."