Articles in papers, magazines, and fiction/nonfiction creative works are full of attempts to be unique. I had a teacher once who told us that if you want to seriously consider a career in fiction writing, you should be confident that your work adds something that isn’t already available in the writing world. I think it’s totally unrealistic to demand this of anyone. There’s already some repetition in the professional published writing world. For instance, 90% of the time I come across numbers in fiction (as an indication of time or hotel room #) it’s in the form 3:54pm or 12:02am. The point is authors dislike using something of the form 6:30pm because it’s right on the button, it’s too common, as is 1:00. It’s rounded up or down, and they believe that by adding or subtracting some minutes, their work is more real, more unique. Not so unique if most people are doing it. Fuck it. Next time I need to use numbers in fiction, they’ll be as round as a pearl. Today is 4/20.