The start of The Illiterate by Agota Kristof fits my case.
I read. It is like a disease. I read everything that comes to hand, everything that meets my glance: newspapers, schoolbooks, posters, bits of paper found on the street, recipes, children's books. Everything in print.
Growing up I read the back of the cornflakes packet, the fru grain tin, insects in the long grass, the back of my hand.
I am four years old. The war has just begun.
How do you become a writer? she asks.
First of all, naturally, you must write. Then, you must continue to write. Even when it doesn't interest anyone.
A slim book in the Spring is worth double. Birch are in their early green. The dark night of the soul is over.
If ever.
There's room in a spare tale for all of us. Reading Agota Kristof makes me write as she does. There are a thousand entrances on every page. We can all settle in with our own bare bones.
One kind of writing exists because, for various reasons, there is no one to say it to. ( Ruskin)
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