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I'm going to be honest with you.

Putting out three episodes of this podcast every week means this sometimes we can get stuck in the creative process. Agonizing over whether what we're making is good or right or meaningful,

wondering what you all will think about every episode. Maybe you've been there too, too paralyzed by a

perfectionist complex, unable to get out of your own way. If this sounds anything like the inside

of your brain, well, this episode is dedicated to you. Every time I've sat down to write and not

been able to write, it's because I've been thinking about what the 18 internet socialists who

hate me are going to say about this or that or the third.

Every year I get a little closer to throw in my phone into the sea.

It's got to go.

This is Brandon Taylor.

For you longtime IBM fans, you may have heard him on the show before, which means you also already know he's one of my favorite authors. And his new novel,

Minor Black Figures, which is out this week, is all about the joys and the horror of creating.

Minor Black Figures is about a painter, Wyeth. We encounter him at the start of the novel in 2022. He's in New York. He's in the midst of a really bad

artistic block. And his friends suggest that he go look at some art that they know he will hate.

And he does that. And in the course of that evening, he meets another man, Keating, who he very quickly discovers as a priest.

And then they spend the whole summer doing one of my favorite things to do, which is to sort of walk and talk about God, about life, about art, about literature.

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