Encouragement comes from the poet William Stafford, who advised his students always to write to their lowest standard. Somebody always corrected him: "You mean your highest standard." No, he meant your lowest standard. Jean Cocteau's editor gave him the same advice: "The thought of having to produce a masterpiece is giving you writer's cramp. You're paralysed at the sight of a blank sheet of paper. So begin any old way. Write: 'One winter evening . . .'" In On Writer's Block: A New Approach to Creativity, Victoria Nelson points out that "there is an almost mathematical ratio between soaring, grandiose ambition . . . and a severe creative block." More writers prostitute themselves "up" than "down"; more are false in their determination to write great literature than in their willingness to throw off a romance.

Janet Burroway, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edit…, loc. 80