But when it comes to writing, every chapter you write is surrounded by those you don’t, every confession by what remains secret or indescribable or unremembered, and only so much of the chaos and fluidity of experience can be sifted and herded onto pages, whatever your intentions and even your themes. You’re not carving marble; you’re grabbing handfuls of flotsam from a turbulent river; you can arrange the detritus but you can’t write the whole river.
