When I Was A Child I Truly

As Every Writer Knows... There Is Something Mysterious About The Writer's Ability, On Any Given Day, To Write. When The Juices Are Flowing, Or The Writer Is 'hot', An Invisible Wall Seems To Fall Away, And The Writer Moves Easily And Surely From One Kind Of Reality To Another... Every Writer Has Experienced At Least Moments Of This Strange, Magical State. Reading Student Fiction One Can Spot At Once Where The Power Turns On And Where It Turns Off, Where The Writer Writes From 'inspiration' Or Deep, Flowing Vision, And Where He Had To Struggle Along On Mere Intellect.

We Read Five Words On The First Page Of A Really Good Novel And We Begin To Forget That We Are Reading Printed Words On A Page; We Begin To See Images.

The True Artist Plays Mad With His Soul, Labors At The Very Lip Of The Volcano, But Remembers And Clings To His Purpose, Which Is As Strong As The Dream. He Is Not Someone Possessed, Like Cassandra, But A Passionate, Easily Tempted Explorer Who Fully Intends To Get Home Again, Like Odysseus.

An Excellent Plumber Is Infinitely More Admirable Than An Incompetent Philosopher. The Society Which Scorns Excellence In Plumbing Because Plumbing Is A Humble Activity And Tolerates Shoddiness In Philosophy Because It Is An Exalted Activity Will Have Neither Good Plumbing Nor Good Philosophy. Neither Its Pipes Nor Its Theories Will Hold Water.

People Will Tell You That Writing Is Too Difficult, That It's Impossible To Get Your Work Published, That You Might As Well Hang Yourself. Meanwhile, They'll Keep Writing And You'll Have Hanged Yourself.