Some readers wish I would write mor

Some readers wish I would write more like Cormac McCarthy or Albert Camus or Raymond Chandler: with spare simplicity. They accuse me of being too lush and exuberant in my prose. They want me to use shorter sentences and fewer adjectives. To them I say: It ain't going to happen. I have feelings similar to those of best-selling Cancerian author Oliver Sacks, who the *New York Times* called, "one of the great clinical writers of the 20th century." Sacks once said, "I never use one adjective if six seem to me better and, in their cumulative effect, more incisive. I am haunted by the density of reality and try to capture this with 'thick description.'" I bring these thoughts to your attention, my fellow Cancerian, because I think it's important for you to be your lavish, sumptuous, complex self in the coming weeks. Don't oversimplify yourself or dumb yourself down, either intellectually or emotionally.