Elizabeth Wurtzel's AMA.

Books Elizabeth's AMA is a typically brilliant affair with her view of the Prozac Nation film (which I bought from abroad years ago at great expense but can't bring myself to watch) and new that she's writing a new book based on her generally misunderstood New York Magazine article.

I hope she won't mind me quoting in full one of her answers (but I'll happily remove if it's stepped over a line) because I want to have it somewhere to refer back to because I'm stuck in a writing rut at the moment, as I'm sure you've noticed and it's all the things I seem to have forgotten:

"Being a writer is extremely hard. This has always been true. It was true for Chaucer. It was true for Shakespeare, who wrote plays to please the queen. No one cares if you write. It has to matter to you so enormously much that you visit your ego upon the world and give it no choice except to care. I agree that this is harder now, not just because there are all these outlets that don't pay, but also because there are ALL THESE OUTLETS. Because of the Internet, there is too much content and not enough audience. It is so hard to distinguish oneself. Here is the trick, I think: You have to be brave as a writer. You have to write in a pure voice that is distinct and rare. It really is not hard. That does not require facility with words so much as it requires lack of fear. Of course, that is hard. Fear is the thing that gets in the way of everything: love, happiness, success.

"I happen to think there were many more opportunities twenty years ago to get a job as an editorial assistant at a magazine and write little articles until you could get assigned bigger pieces. But in terms of becoming an author of a book, the odds are as stacked against you or for you as ever. It is really difficult. But I think if you are sure this is what you must do, you need to be fearless and proceed. It really only works if it is a matter of no other choice."

My italics.  I'm trying to remember.