When I feel like I'm doing my best work, there is a bit of a freedom, a bit of flight that you're not so much losing yourself but you're sort of in the zone.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It's great to have the freedom to enjoy your work and not feel like you're leaving your other life behind.
So I think that if I do feel more freedom right now in my career, it's not so much because I have less at stake but more a sense that I've learned more.
Some days I feel good about my work, and sometimes I feel I've never written anything worthwhile. That's par for the course.
When you're doing what you love to do, you become resilient. You create a habit of taking chances on yourself. If you do what's expected of you, and things go poorly, you will look to external sources for what to do next, because that will be your habit. You will be standing there frozen. If you are just filling a role, you will be blindsided.
When I work, I work very hard. When I don't work, I have to do something where my endeavor can totally take me off what I do professionally, like sailing. It takes all your attention.
My job is to put myself out there. It's beyond my control how I'm perceived.
I find that I put my body in my work when I am at a particularly difficult or joyous point because I want to feel that moment.
I do my best work when I am in pain and turmoil.
I feel like I haven't done my best work yet. I feel like there's a world of possibilities out there.
The more freedom I allow myself as a writer to wander, become lost and go into uncertain territory - and I am always trying to go to the more awkward place, the more difficult place - the more frightening it is, because I have no plan.