One wild card was yet to be played.

At first, all is black and white. Black on white. That's where I'm walking, through pages. These pages. Sometimes it gets so that I have one foot in the pages and the words, and the other in what they speak of.

We're silent now, both waiting, till I remind myself that I'm the older one and should therefore initiate conversation. But I don't. I don't want to waste this girl with idle chitchat. She's beautiful.

She gave 'The Dream Carrier' to Max as if words alone could nourish him.

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

It would then be brought abruptly to an end, for the brightness had shown suffering the way.

You'll have days of complete lack of faith in your abilities. But you have to keep coming back. That's when you know you're a writer - when you take the failures and appear at the desk again, over and over again.