starting

[ellenkushner]

‎"Stories are always really, really hard. I think it's totally rational for a writer, no matter how much experience he has, to go right down in confidence to almost zero when you sit down to write something. Wy not? Your last piece is never going to write your next one for you."

-- John McPhee: 
The Art of Nonfiction No. 3
The Paris Review
Spring 2010

Comments

[lar_laughs.livejournal.com]

Thank you for that. I needed that quote the exact moment that it popped up in my thread.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

I love it when that happens!

[gwynnega]

Truer words were never spoken!

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That is a wonderful quotation. Thank you.

[adrienne martini (from livejournal.com)]

I do take some comfort in the last piece, however, in that it proves that I have made it through the wilderness before and survived.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Good point; me, too!

But I do confess I'm always guilty of saying, "Oh, I know how to do this now - this one will be eaaaaasy!"

Ha.

The trick is not to feel Horribly Betrayed when it isn't.