Recently, I looked back at my first manuscripts and was struck by the lack of space, of breath. That's exactly how it felt, back then... like I was suffocating.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Sometimes when I think how good my book can be, I can hardly breathe.
Literature is air, and I'm suffocating in mediocrity.
If I went for too long without writing, I would start to feel like something inside me was dying.
Writing for me is definitely a form of ventilation - a way for me to cope and deal with emotions. I think it is for any writer.
There has to be space for play in literature. We all need some breathing room.
Sometimes I felt as a writer I was purging, and it almost hurt to purge to that level. Now it doesn't feel that way, maybe because I'm older. Maybe life has given me some punches, but it didn't knock me down.
It helped me in the air to keep my small mind contained in earthly human limits, not lost in vertiginous space and elements unknown.
Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.
I've never felt the breath of God - you can take that statement literally or metaphorically - more than when I was yearning for a personal, intimate connection to something bigger than me.
At that time, I had recently finished a book called Amazing Grace, which many people tell me is a very painful book to read. Well, if it was painful to read, it was also painful to write. I had pains in my chest for two years while I was writing that book.
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