It was not uncommon for the children to be told they were being treated this way because it was their bad karma and they must have hurt a child in a past life.

Reading Stephen King's book, On Writing, was like being cornered and forced to have a long, drawn out mental enema.

I was a new devotee of Eastern mysticism and even though I did not join that particular group, I could well have done. They seemed a bit extreme but I regarded myself as not quite ready.

In the back of my mind was the constant hankering, almost yearning, to write but something always stopped me in my tracks. Or if I did find my way to put a pen to paper or finger on a keyboard I'd give up after a few minutes. I'd find other things to do: Anything but writing.

My block was due to two overlapping factors: laziness and lack of discipline.

My biggest excuse to others and myself was that I had writer's block, as if it was some kind of illness.

A wonderful emotion to get things moving when one is stuck is anger. It was anger more than anything else that had set me off, roused me into productivity and creativity.