This was really good. A very clear, cogent take on the craft of writing. It almost made me want to start writing a novel.
On distractions
… I’m sure all writers feel pretty much the same, no matter what their skill and success level: God, if only I were in the right writing environment, with the right understanding people, I just KNOW I could be penning my masterpiece
In truth, I’ve found that any day’s routine interruptions and distractions don’t much hurt a work in progress and may actually help it in some ways. It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster’s shell that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters. And the larger the work looms in my day—the more it seems like an I hafta instead of just an I wanna—the more problematic it can become.