Writing is lonely. It is quiet, except for maybe the sound of keys clicking away or the soft scratch of a pencil on paper. But, when a writer realizes that they need to write, it doesn't come from a place of silence. We write because our mind is so loud and unruly that something has got to give. If there was any other way to sustain ourselves, we would probably choose it. Writing is a last resort.

To write, we need to be alone. We need to know how to move beyond the distraction of the chatty women in the coffee shop, the unmade bed in our room, and write. We need to be so interested in this aloneness that we build our lives around it. What is so scary about being not-so-close to people? I don’t mean we have to get rid of all people, things, and outings in our life. It is also not to say that we don’t want to be heard, eventually. We all want to be heard. We just have to say something first.