When/where you find yourself scared and paralyzed, either of something you are writing, of revealing yourself through the work, or for any other reason, how do you start moving again? And by moving I mean forward, not backwards, as in retreating?
“I’m amazed by how often I’ve struggled with piece of writing only to return to it months, or even years, later to find that it all comes together with little thought.”
“How do I know when I’ve found my story? When I wake up in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning and have to grab the notepad on my nightstand.”
“I’m on record as not believing in writer’s block. But as I learned after having my second child a year ago, sometimes you just can’t rush the fiction process, no matter how many hours you spend in front of your computer.”
“I guess I had to unlearn the idea that I was not smart enough to write. I had to choose to ignore my ideas about myself and my own abilities and just write anyway.”
“The other kind of seduction—the one you describe as “being someone”—I can understand on a more personal level. Certainly when I was many drafts in on The Beast Is an Animal, I thought: If I can only get this novel published, then my life will be different.”
