Lisa See
I knew three things about myself when I was growing up. I never wanted to get married, I didn’t want to have children, and I always wanted to live out of a suitcase. I took two years off from college to travel in Europe. The whole time I was wondering how I was going to make my life work the way I envisioned it and how I would be able to support myself. One morning, when I was living in Greece, I woke up and it was like a cartoon light bulb had gone off in my head. I thought, Oh, I could be a writer!
When I finally returned to the States, I got my first two magazine assignments within forty-eight hours. But clearly I didn’t know myself very well, because I also got married and had children. I still spend an awful lot of time living out of a suitcase though!
These days, I get up early and work on my e-mail for an hour or two. Then I write 1,000 words. That’s only four pages. Some days I write more, but I try never to write less. I usually have an outline, and I write from beginning to end without stopping to edit. Some writers won’t move forward until they get one page to be absolutely perfect, but I think you can spend a lot of time questioning yourself if you take that route. Also, if you write straight through, you allow magic to happen.