Who’s in the handful? Maybe it’s your friends, maybe it’s your partner, maybe it’s some dead writer from the 15th century. It probably shouldn’t be your parents or your teachers. (Those relationships are too loaded.) It can be yourself, I suppose, as there are plenty of “greats” who claim to do it for nobody but themselves, but things can get masturbatory real fast. I’ve always liked Vonnegut’s advice: “Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.” Whenever I get stuck, I try to make something for my wife, who’s been reading me for a long time, and is good at telling me when I stink.