I hate it when people say things like, I became a writer because I was a terrible house painter. Which means “it’s the only thing I’m good at,” which is another way of saying “I’m too good at it to do anything else.” Maybe I’m just jealous. I’m not especially good at writing. I don’t even have a mind full of stories. It’s more like a peculiar tic, ocd, a refusal to give up the idea of myself as a writer, in spite of any encouraging signs. Like a person who talks in rhyme because some part of her brain malfunctioned and she can’t stop.

Punishing things people say: if you aren’t writing then you aren’t a writer. True, in the most literal sense of the word, but it ends up slamming a door in the face of lots of people hoping to get in. You could say, instead: to be a writer you have to practice, every day, and be willing to be bad at it, and not enjoy it sometimes. And when you have done that enough, you will be a writer. Don’t spend too much time asking, what have I written so far, as if that is the measure of your potential. Look forward. Ask yourself, am I willing to write, write every day, feel bad about myself, and keep trying?

Some writers can’t stop themselves from writing. And some have to tie themselves to a chair to get it done. I am that one. And if you are thinking about it that hard, then it’s something you want. And that’s a beginning.

It has taken me decades to understand and accept the premise that to become a writer you must train, the same way you train for a competitive sport. The idea that I didn’t understand that before astonishes me. How could I be so naïve? How did I grow up thinking talent was a kind of magic, or voodoo, that no work was involved, only hoping, and/or finding someone who could determine whether or not you had the Gift, the way geneticists can tell if you will or will not develop Huntington’s? I have wasted so much time waiting for a diagnosis, instead of learning how to write.

Kate said that I waste time with BOTH voices. The one that says “you are a shitty failed excuse for a writer, and don’t think you’re going to get anywhere because you won’t.” And the one that says, “please stop bothering me, I’m just trying to write, how can I ever write when you are being so mean?” She said, I wish you could just sneak away and let them fight with each other and do some writing.