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.

In fact, I always assumed that most everything I read was true, to one degree or another. I couldn't articulate this fact until after I read Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and he discussed Happening Truth, Story Truth, and Emotional Truth. I always understood that the facts of The Sun Also Rises or On the Road were the facts as dictated by a certain narrative structure, but because the experiences of those characters echoed my own feelings about the world. I knew there was a Happening Truth behind them.

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.

As I've picked up more responsibilities in life, I've found nearly every one of those extra burdens drains me in a way that makes writing more difficult. That may not be the case for everyone - I know plenty of writers and artists who seem to have energy in abundance for all the facets of life; but are they producing anything worthwhile?

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.

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.