Write a GREAT Book! 29 and even physically. It can also be hugely rewarding and exhilarating. But you’ve got to get used to it. You’ve got to get over that panic and stop feeling like it’s the 昀椀rst day of school or your 昀椀rst date. Even for the most successful writers, 昀椀lling up the page isn’t always easy. Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most acclaimed 昀椀ction writers of our time. She’s written approximately sixty novels, plus short stories, poetry, non昀椀ction, and even children’s books. In a National Book Award interview, Oates said, “Each day is like an enormous rock that I’m trying to push up this hill. I get it up a fair distance, it rolls back a little bit, and I keep pushing it, hoping I’ll get it to the top of the hill and that it will go on its own momentum. But I’ve never given up. I’ve always kept going. I don’t feel that I could a昀昀ord to give up. Yet I am not conscious of working especially hard, or of ‘working’ at all. Writing and teaching have always been, for me, so richly reward- ing that I don’t think of them as work in the usual sense of the word.” Simply put, Oates is used to the process of putting words on the page. It may not always be easy, but it’s nat- ural. 吀栀at’s the way it is for professional writers. It can’t be something you do only once in a while. You’ve got to write as much as you can! You’ve got to feel at home with it. Writing has to become a natural action that you do all the time.