Energy seems to be the more critical of those two variables, because if I'm really feeling the push/pull to write, then I'll make the time.

You know, there are those writers who work at writing every day. I'm not one of those guys. I tend to work at varying levels of intensity, based on the amount of time and energy I have available.

If you're trying to convey a crucial emotional truth, you have to be in total control of the emotional pacing of the story, and if you can only strike one note in terms of tone then you're going to be quite limited as a writer.

That being said, if you slept with me and are filled with shame at the possibility of the world knowing, then you should have considered that before you hopped into bed with a writer.

Most writers are lazy intellectuals, and it's a goddamn shame because a writer with an audience has a moral responsibility to make readers think about the world in a different way than what they're used to. Why else would you pick up a book if not to inhabit another realm of existence for a while?

I didn't write poems for a number of years after graduate school because the criticisms of other students in the workshops wouldn't quiet down in my mind when I tried to work.

Engaging with creativity in a serious way is a shamanistic activity, and by extension when you choose to follow a mystical path you cannot have a "normal" life within the community. Your job is to stand outside the community and hold up the mirror.