“Every day I must prove to myself I am a writer. The knowledge goes away in my sleep. What I wrote yesterday was paltry, meager, so flawed it is barely anything. Or, if it is good, I am no longer the person who could write it.”
― Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life
― Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life
“We should be told: Write fast, write close to the bone, write for ten hours straight until you’re not thinking in words anymore, but in colors, in smells, in waves of memory. Right what you care about. Don’t write one more word you don’t care about. Don’t waste any more of your life on what does not matter to you. Write only what matters to you—those scenes, those dialogues. Get messy. Before you get neat, get very, very messy. Write until you are more alive than you have ever been before.”
― Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life
― Writing Past Dark: Envy, Fear, Distraction and Other Dilemmas in the Writer's Life
“Daily life is always extraordinary when rendered precisely.”
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Alan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Alan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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