“Most commitments that keep me from my writing are masks that I put up to hide my fear and my failure to do what I need and want most to do. If my belief in my own work is strong, other commitments will adjust themselves. Human beings have free will.
“If I could speak to myself as an 18-year-old, I would say, ‘You can say ‘no’ to the demands of your immature mother. You can insist on some privacy, some time of your own.’ If I could speak to myself as a young mother of four children, I would say, ‘You could nap with the children, then in the solitude of night or dawn, write.’ Regardless of our particular circumstances, the struggle goes on to keep at our work. If I could speak to myself just this morning when I answered the phone and the mail instead of writing, I’d say, ‘You can sit down, slow down, turn off the telephone.’ There is something fundamentally wrong with ‘other commitments’ that keep me from my true work.”
—Pat Schneider, Writing Alone and With Others
