Emily Kendy

I do! My mom had it framed. It was before I could read or write. I guess I saw handwriting somewhere and got a bit excited by the concept so I handwrote jibberish across all the lines of a loose leaf piece of paper. My mom thought it was beautiful. Looking back, I think I must have a mild form of aspergers or I'm obsessive compulsive. Perhaps a bit of both.

It bugs me when I hear writers say things like "it's very important to write every day." I don't believe that what works for one person should be a blanket instruction for all writers everywhere. Do what works for you so long as you do it - that's my only blanket instruction: just write. If you write, you'll get to where you want to go. My process varies. I've tried everything - from writing all night blitzed out in front of a computer, to writing in airports sober and in longhand. I've found that sobriety has helped my writing, which doesn't say much about my genius. I've been reading a Leonard Cohen autobiography lately and I had no idea how much drugs that guy did, it literally never occurred to me that someone with such lucid thoughts on love could be such a psychotic mess. But many of the greats could do both. I thought, for five minutes in my 20s, that I could too. Nope.