# Froth on the Daydream

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/froth-on-the-daydream
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/froth-on-the-daydream.md
Podcast: [Don't You Dare To Think Out Loud!](https://stenobird.com/podcast/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124)
Published: 2025-11-13T16:12:43+00:00
Episode link: https://javiertruben.substack.com/p/froth-on-the-daydream
Audio file: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/178802997/64ca6c1066a582d35d1abebf610e26d3.mp3
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/don-t-you-dare-to-think-out-loud-6458124/episodes/froth-on-the-daydream
Duration seconds: 610

## Resource

I suppose it’s because I had a good night’s sleep that I feel better than yesterday. I thought I couldn’t write a single word because of the alarming lack of relevance. Writing fiction requires a massive focus on a story that sometimes makes no sense, and sometimes it truly does. Navigating between these two extremes is quite intense and certainly not for the faint of heart. I had the bad luck of growing up in a time when the plot seemed useless. In fact, I could say the novels I loved were a kind of chaotic mess. When did I begin to appreciate a plot? That’s easy! Writing my first manuscript, I ran a free-fall plot, which brought about a large number of characters. So, at the time of ending such an orgy of creativity, the protagonist looked like a bit player. Of course, that little crack went unnoticed until I began to receive the feedback of my first agent, who in a moment of candor, said: “You could have written seven novels if you had had a plot.” Needless to say, Mrs. Kerrigan was right. She had a business to run, books to pitch for big publishers, not a lab of crazy ideas, but a literary agency. A friend of mine was way more graphic: “Next time, cut the bologna in thin slices.” That was bound to happen. So, with the first lesson learned, my second novel was a tour de force. But I missed out on Cervantes’ trick of giving voice to 600 characters. On the contrary, I ran a mix of triangle affair and coming-of-age novel. And yet, I did not run the distance, the 120,000 words that make a good brick of waste paper a beautiful printed ephemera to fill the windows of a bookstore. On the contrary, I fell short because I had no idea what a canonical novel was. A behemoth of five hundred pages. Otherwise, your literary dreams will go to the pile. A younger version of me thou…

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