‘You just need to write it out and get it over with.’ ‘I don’t know why I feel this way. It’s like performance anxiety or something. What if I can’t get it up?’ ‘Your readers will just spoon you and tell you it doesn’t matter in the least and that it happens to everyone.’ ‘It’s the whole reason for the book, this scene.’ ‘No, it’s not. Maybe it once was, but it’s not anymore. You have to let that go. It isn’t a short story with its one perfect culmination. It’s messy.’ ‘Yeah, I know. A novel is a long story with something wrong with it,’
