Where to look if you've lost your mind?
The past exudes legend: one can't make pure clay of time's mud.
Teach yourself to work in uncertainty.
Writers who can't invent stories often substitute style for narrative. They remind me of the painter who couldn't paint people, so he painted chairs.
There are no wrong books. What's wrong is the fear of them.
Somewhere I put it this way: first drafts are for learning what one’s fiction wants him to say. Revision works with that knowledge to enlarge and enhance an idea, to reform it. Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing.