I have long since decided if you wait for the perfect time to write, you'll never write. There is no time that isn't flawed somehow.
Interpretation
Waiting for the perfect moment to start writing often leads to never starting at all, as every moment has its imperfections.
Margaret Atwood emphasizes the futility of waiting for an ideal set of circumstances to begin a creative endeavor like writing. Life is inherently flawed and imperfect, and it is crucial to embrace those imperfections instead of allowing them to hinder our creativity and willingness to express ourselves.
In practice
An author might use this quote during a workshop about overcoming writer's block.
If I am good enough and quiet enough, perhaps after all they will let me go; but it’s not easy being quiet and good, it’s like hanging on to the edge of a bridge when you’ve already fallen over; you don’t seem to be moving, just dangling there, and yet it is taking all your strength.
I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off.
What else can I do? Once you've gone this far you aren't fit for anything else. Something happens to your mind. You're overqualified, overspecialized, and everybody knows it. Nobody in any other game would be crazy enough to hire me. I wouldn't even make a good ditch-digger, I'd start tearing apart the sewer-system, trying to pick-axe and unearth all those chthonic symbols - pipes, valves, cloacal conduits... No, no. I'll have to be a slave in the paper-mines for all time.
We love each other, that’s true whatever it means, but we aren’t good at it; for some it’s a talent, for others only an addiction.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Knowing too much about other people puts you in their power, they have a claim on you, you are forced to understand their reasons for doing things and then you are weakened.
If others hurt you, let the injury go. This is your test. If you let it go, you will find serenity.
Dare to be true. Nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most, grows two thereby.
Traditional thinking is all about "what is" Future thinking will also need to be about what can be.
When you stop admiring yourself _x000D_ and let the eyes of the heart _x000D_ open your vision to vast other worlds _x000D_ then all you do, will become admirable
Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.
We complain today that ministers do not know how to preach; but is it not equally true that our congregations do not know how to hear?
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