No one ever tells you that: that there’s no method. Writing’s a lawless place.

The longer I don't write, the more I hurt.

But writers and their woes: they couldn't be parted. Not for anything.

The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, Death in the Afternoon - as well as all of the short stories that writers studied for the inner trick of them. But there was no trickery: only the plain words put there as if they had always been there - like pebbles cooled in a river.