A Novelist on Fiction Writing: “possession,” “trance,” “spell,” “you can’t be entirely sure where it came from” but “You made it up. It’s made of you”

“…the novel-writing process…requires a degree of possession…you need to forget what you are doing, to fall into a trance, and when the spell breaks, you can’t be entirely sure what you’ve unearthed, where it came from…And however much of what results is pure invention (or so you think), your subjectivity is all you have. You made it up. It’s made of you…” (1).

1. Jessica Winter. “Our Autofiction Fixation.” New York Times, March 14, 2021. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/14/books/review/autofiction-my-dark-vanessa-american-dirt-the-need-kate-elizabeth-russell-jeanine-cummins-helen-phillips.html