Ernest Hemingway - Letter to Waldo Pierce, 1st Oct 1928

What you ought to do is write you big lazy bastard. My god it is hard for anybody to write. I never start a damn thing without knowing 200 times I can't write—never will be able to write a line—can't go on—can't get started—stuff is rotten—can't say what I mean—know there is a whole fine complete thing and all I get of it is the bacon rinds. You would write better than anybody but the minute it becomes impossible you stop. That is the time you have to go on through and then it gets easier. It always gets utterly and completely impossible.

Thank God it does—otherwise everybody would write and I would starve to death.