OTR, Take 20: Beverly Glenn-Copeland

When I was a younger man, full of a different, more innocent kind of ambition, I was convinced that if I didn't have my first novel published by the time I turned 25, I would be a failure. You see, I could cherry-pick many of my favorite writers and see that they'd published their first work at or before 25: Pynchon's?V., Camus's?L'etranger, Mann's?Buddenbrooks. So I did the insane thing and set the same crazy standard for myself.

You can guess how it went: I failed to publish a novel by 25 and inevitably considered myself a failure. I went to law school, having relegated my true ambition to the back bench in favor of a more achievable, commercial ambition.

Well, my friends, if you know anything of my journey, you have probably picked up on the fact that I don't really fit neatly into the legal world. I burned myself out in Biglaw, chasing an ever-elusive sense of accomplishment, trying to claw meaning from litigating high-stakes corporate disputes that I, in all honestly, gave not one shit about. Not one, solitary, shit.

If you'd like to read the whole thing, click here (and please subscribe at OTR's new home)