Existentialism for beginners

A literary agent in San Francisco has written a post on why it takes so long to get a novel published, at the end of which he says: You have no choice.

My mother used to tell me a story about my grandfather. He was the most talented musician she knew: he taught himself to play the violin at the age of 12 on a fiddle he bought by mail order from money he'd made crabbing on the Chesapeake, he could play any string instrument by ear, he could play the piano by ear. His Uncle John, a doctor who'd trained as a doctor at Heidelberg, offered to pay to send him to college to study music. My grandfather thought of the concerts he'd been to: at the end the musicians couldn't wait to get away. He didn't want to hate music because music was his life. So he said he'd rather be a lawyer, and his uncle refused to pay, so he put himself through law school. He never did become a professional musician, but he loved music to the end of his life. He had a basement full of instruments he'd been unable to resist picking up at auction: two violins, a Gibson mandolin, a banjo, a viola, a cello, a bass, a couple of guitars, a ukelele. Grand piano in the living room. When he went to parties he drove people crazy because he couldn't see the point of a party without music: he'd bring out one or two of the instruments he'd brought along, and soon they'd all be singing while he played up a storm. Sometimes he'd go into his local music shop and the owner would let him play the Jefferson Stradivarius and say: Nobody gets the tone out of it that you do, John.

Nathan Bransford tells writers they have no choice but to put up with the things that make writers hate their work. Anyone with a crazy grandfather who played the Jefferson Strad for fun knows better.