Are you ever afraid that you’ve written your last words?

By Nava Atlas | On | Comments (0)

Dear Literary Ladies,
Every time I finish a piece of work, I feel so depleted. It feels like I’ll never be able to write another word, let alone complete anything. Is this common, and do accomplished authors ever feel this way?

This fear is one of the horrors of an author’s life. Where does work come from? What chance, what small episode will start the chain of creation? I once wrote a story about a writer who could not write anymore, and my friend Tennessee Williams said, ‘How could you dare write that story, it’s the most frightening work I have ever read.’ I was pretty well sunk while I was writing it.

— Carson McCullers, 1917 – 1967