He Used To Say We All Had

I Was Starting To Wonder If I Was Ready To Be A Writer, Not Someone Who Won Prizes, Got Published And Was Given The Time And Space To Work, But Someone Who Wrote As A Course Of Life. Maybe Writing Wouldn't Have Any Rewards. Maybe The Salvation I Would Gain Through Work Would Only Be Emotional And Intellectual. Wouldn't That Be Enough, To Be A Waitress Who Found An Hour Or Two Hidden In Every Day To Write?

Everybody Believes In Chance.

If What We Want To Do Is Promote Reading And Writing And Publishing And Making Sure This Is A Business That Keeps Going - Because It Is A Business! It's Not Just An Art - Then We Have To Take Responsibility. I Get Sort Of Crazy And Frothy When I Think About This. It Really Matters.

There Are, Of Course, People Who Didn't Create The Trouble They're In, But Lots Of Them Do.

I Believe That, More Than Anything Else, This Grief Of Constantly Having To Face Down Our Own Inadequacies Is What Keeps People From Being Writers. Forgiveness, Therefore, Is Key. I Can't Write The Book I Want To Write, But I Can And Will Write The Book I Am Capable Of Writing. Again And Again Throughout The Course Of My Life I Will Forgive Myself.