I realized there in that village that all the writers I'd read were harping about the same thing, but never really hitting the target. They were keeping all their points and conclusions as secrets from the reader. For fear that they'd be wrong when it got to the wrong person. Honesty didn't sell. Books were about lies because they were writing to a society that starved for them.
But a novel was a very private thing. They were the means for the right-standing citizens to dream in the land of the taboo and shun those who dwelt in it. And a way for the dwellers to feel alright about what they thought they needed in order to feel okay. And now that I'd found this point, I wanted to trash everything I'd been working on and start it over again. True writing didn't use smoke or mirrors. And it didn't call all the shots and boss you around by making you feel like you know nothing. True writing was these rivers of water, these arteries of blood. It flows as it will, not because there is a reader. It sustains life indirectly, for life has chosen to adapt to it.

She stood up and searched my empty gaze for a reason to forgive me. Finding none, she turned and headed back through the door with her guard-escort. I stayed in the chair and felt all the pieces of the past month swim toward my gut and coalesce into one massive tumor of guilt. And as I left the room and walked through the dingy hallway and passed the guard-turned-comedian who decided he'd make another joke at my expense, the tumor found a vein in my self-respect and began to metastasize.