Goodreads asked Heather Tosteson:

How do you deal with writer’s block?

Heather Tosteson I respect it! I don't believe in writing just to prove you can. I think we write when there is something we really need to know that we can only know through the act of writing. Writing, at least as I understand and practice it, engages the whole person and poses questions for us that we have to grow into—questions of skill, insight, importance. Growth takes time and something beyond consciousness and conscious intent. The best way forward often is not the most direct way.

I work in different art forms—photography, sculpture, sound, and movement, so often I find that one of those other forms of expression will reach where words can't. Sometimes I just need to ground in the nitty gritty of daily life—loving my husband, children, and grandchildren, folding laundry, paying bills, testing cantaloupe at the farmer's market, calling a friend. I've also found that just beginning with the pitifulest, infinitesimal thing, a sentence, phrase, or single word, acts as a magnet, drawing other ideas, feelings, words to it—in their own good time

flag