Alana: How do you start a writing piece when you can't concentrate entirely on writing?
Ray: You stumble into it, mostly. You don't know what you're doing, and suddenly, it's done.
Carolyn: Writing is like meditation or going into an ESP trance, or prayer.
Anne: I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident.
Alana: That makes sense, but if everyone feels hesitant when writing how does anyone get any writing done that is worthwhile?
Anne: Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.
Carolyn: Like dreaming, you are tapping into your unconscious. To be fully conscious and alert, with life banging and popping and cuckooing all around, you are not going to find your way to your subconscious, which is a place of complete submission.
Ray: The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are.
Alana: Makes sense. So any last final advice?
Ray: Run fast, stand still.
Anne: Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts.
Carolyn: Clock coo coos. Typewriter screams.
Then suddenly, as if something really was screaming at me to wake up, I woke up startled. Now, I am more relaxed and less stressed at working on this paper that is looking at me from across the room, but after a decent nights sleep.