Salon.com > Why We Write http://www.salon.com Mon, 20 May 2013 12:01:55 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Jennifer Egan: “Goon Squad” could have been better! http://www.salon.com/2013/01/27/jennifer_egan_goon_squad_could_have_been_better/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/27/jennifer_egan_goon_squad_could_have_been_better/#comments Sun, 27 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13168525 When I’m not writing I feel an awareness that something’s missing. If I go a long time, it becomes worse. I become depressed. There’s something vital that’s not happening. A certain slow damage starts to occur. I can coast along awhile without it, but then my limbs go numb. Something bad is happening to me, and I know it. The longer I wait, the harder it is to start again.

When I’m writing, especially if it’s going well, I’m living in two different dimensions: this life I’m living now, which I enjoy very much, and this completely other world I’m inhabiting that no one else knows about. I don’t think my husband can tell. It’s a double life I get to live without destroying my marriage. And it’s heaven.

Especially when I’m writing a first draft, I feel as if I’ve been transported out of myself. That’s always a state I’m trying to achieve, even as a journalist — although when I’m working on nonfiction I’m almost never actually writing. I do months of research and then write the piece in a few days.

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