One hopes and prays and bashes his head against the wall. But it knows. It can bide its time. It knows that all the errors, all the detours, all the failures and frustrations will be turned to account. To be born a writer, one must learn to live privation, suffering, humiliation. Above all, one must live apart. The writer clings to his limb while beneath him life surges by steady, persistent, tumultuous. (Henry Miller on Writing, 73)