“For years my life wasn’t very peaceful and I couldn’t get quiet enough to detect those first intimations of a story. Some source of attunement had vanished. Or—just as likely—been suppressed to save me the pain of the conflict between the desire to pursue a story and the reality that every scrap of psychic energy was needed elsewhere. When I did start writing again it was in fits and starts, and that surprised me—I’d thought that beginning again would be like opening the sluice gates, years of stuff would come pouring through. Effortlessness is such a great dream! In reality the surveilling intolerance of perfectionism was keen as ever. But I was less scared of ferocity. I had the fantastic feeling of having less to lose. After all I’d just gone years without getting anything written—that was the real, and freeing, loss.”
—Elizabeth Tallent in Tin House