Norman Mailer on Writing

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INTERVIEWER: Might it be said… that writing is a sort of self-annihilation?

MAILER: It uses you profoundly. There’s simply less of you after you finish a book… Yet if you’re writing a good novel then you’re being an explorer—you’re getting into something where you don’t know the end, where the end is not given. There’s a mixture of dread and excitement that keeps you going. To my mind, it’s not worth writing a novel unless you’re tackling something where your chances of success are open. You can fail. You’re gambling with your psychic reserves.

— Norman Mailer The Art of Fiction No. 193 The Paris Review