most certainly fail to find ways to make the story different from your last; you'll end up repeating yoursel£ and/or writing a lot of "look ma, no hands" gorgeous prose that is as indulgent as it is irrelevant to the story. You can be too hard on yourself-you can hold on to things too long, you can be too timid-and you can be too easy on yourself. Ifyou fail to find that sweet spot, you'll end up stalled out on the hill. When I finish a piece I have no emotion whatsoever. That's how I know I'm finished. oejmr1g1ng to MP: I hate to keep quoting dead people, but others have said it far better than I can. Henry James said the first and final job of the fiction writer is to be interesting. The question is, how do you continue to tell stories that are of interest to others? I would say that you need to be an interesting person, but I have met far too many very accomplished writers who are not actually very interesting people. I think it falls, again, on finding the appropriate rhythm of the story. 1hat and interesting language-language which "aspires to the condi– tion ofmusic;' as Conrad suggested it should-are what interest me as a reader. The other quote comes from Chekhov, who said that the role of the artist is "not to solve the problem, but to state it correctly." Just getting the problem down on the page is a big enough task. I'm not in the business of offering solutions. Who am I to tell people how to live their lives? My responsibility is to write fiction, not pamphlets. As for when it stops belonging to me, that's an interesting ques– tion. I'm not sure of the answer. Does it ever belong to me? I suppose certain theorists would say no. I guess I would say that it stops belong– ing to me the moment I no longer have any interest in reading over it. That point usually comes well before it appears in print. 60
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