Be Brave or Be Stupid

Here’s Philip Roth on the subject of beginning a novel:

I don’t know very much [when I start.] I write my way into my knowledge. Then, if I’m lucky, I get a break. That’s why it’s so important to get started. Because however awful starting is—and it is absolutely awful—when you get into it, when you’ve got ten pages, which may take two weeks, then you can build.

Philip Roth

Before I wrote Bagger Vance, I had no idea I was obsessed with issues of identity and self-realization.  

Before Gates of Fire, I had no idea I saw life in terms of a battle. These are huge themes in my life, and I never knew either of them till I saw them materialize out of the keyboard.

This is why the artist and entrepreneur have to be brave or stupid. Each has to jump off the cliff of what-he-thinks-he-thinks in order to land with a glorious splat in what-he-really-thinks.

Or, put another way, he has to forget what he thinks is his voice, in order to speak with what really is his voice.

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