"And maybe it’s our drive to be alone -- not all the time, certainly, but enough to read and dream and reset our mental energies in order to deal with People again -- that at least partly impels the drive to write. Reading and writing become the bridge crossing us from our carefully guarded alone-zone into the world, into the human condition itself. We contain multitudes, and those multitudes contain us."The sad irony of course is that I'm in a cafe doing this, instead of in the home office with the door closed. I can't help it, I either need to be completely isolated or be surrounded by people who aren't entitled to one iota of my time and attention.
I'm not so sure the solitude has to do with my particular drive to write. My drive comes from the struggle to take ideas from my head, some that've been there for years, and spit them out in a form others might appreciate. I've been doing the spitting part for years, anyway--why not construct something from it?