I'm Adely Moe and this is The Slowdown.

There's this thing that happens when you've been writing a while, where you look at the

paper, or the screen, or out the window, and you think, what the hell am I doing?

What could I possibly have to say about the world when it's all been said before, and

said better by better writers?

Why should I shove my black ballpoint pen or garamonde type into the universe when everything

has already been written about?

When this happens, it also comes with the crushing realization that not only has everything

already been written about, but for centuries, someone has had this same epiphany.

While drinking tea or wine, and staring out the window, someone has said, what good are

my words against the endless sea of history and time?

The hits just keep on coming.

Not only are you not the first to recognize that everything has been said before, some

one has already said everything's been said before.

So what happens then?

What's next?

Well, if you're like me, you have an overwhelming feeling of dread, then you go outside, you

pay a bill, you call your mom, you answer your emails, you contemplate the end of your

life, and then suddenly, because you have no choice, because something in you is drawn

to the page, because you are bent in the way poets are bent, you go back to the page and

start to write again.

That's how art gets made, in conversation with all conversations, in spite of history

...