My book was a bad idea - Salon.com

My book was a bad idea - Salon.com: Then I came back to New York and set about writing, a thing I believed I loved to do.

I was wrong. I liked having written things. Writing them was the worst. I wrote and wrote, and could not believe there was so much still to write. I read and reread drafts until I was no longer sure they were in English. I cut pages of useless and boring exposition that amounted to days of work. I was at one point concerned that I had not given enough detail to the process of cashew farming. You don’t need to know what the book was about to know that this is a bad sign. No one, ever, since Gutenberg, has closed a book and wished they’d learned more about cashew farming.

And I was scared, so scared, that I would get something wrong, that I would sound clunky or naive, that I would take this fascinating story that happened to cross my path and jack it up with my own incompetence. I agonized over every sentence, and I have yet to hear any great writer advise that the best work comes when you ignore your instincts and focus intently on fear and self-doubt.

I love this so, so much. It's true...the truth just sounds different. And sometimes, it is the best feeling to just hear someone else say yours out loud.