Writer's block is real. It happens. Some days you sit down at theold typewriter, put your fingers on the keys, and nothing popsinto your head. Blanko. Nada. El nothingissimo. What you dowhen this happens is what separates you from the one-of-thesedays-I'm-gonna-write-a-book crowd.

For some it is harder towrite a novel than to row a bathtub across the North Atlantic.

Novel writing is like heroin addiction it takes everything you've got.