The Noble Try

The Noble Try

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FUN OR BUST

the impasse-to-breakthrough pipeline

Isabel Cowles Murphy's avatar
Isabel Cowles Murphy
Jul 13, 2026
∙ Paid

I started these essays five years ago in the wake of an unsold manuscript. After the rejection I felt knotty and agitated—doubting, stopped-up, but bursting with ideas in that compensatory, manic way of the rebounding and broken-hearted. But even with so much popping in my brain, I was stuck.

So I compared my breasts to earlobes. I described running comm…

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