Write Like It's a Bear Suit

To find out more about Michael Palmer during this month of Palmer-imitation, I read this National Vaccine Information Center interview. The interview was conducted in March 2002.

I loved his admission halfway through:

"I didn't even know I could write at all when I did it - fiction or non-fiction. I just sat down and wrote a book. It had many, many weaknesses. When I speak at conferences, I often talk about me as a writer like it is one of those old comedies where somebody sees a bear's paw on their shoulder and is certain that it's his friend wearing a bear suit. So he's not afraid: he hits the bear in the nose and he punches the bear over his shoulder and he does perfectly well until the moment he realizes, 'Oh, it's a real bear!' And then he gets terrified. That is sort of what has happened to me in writing. When I hadn't published a book and I didn't have any track record, I was fearless."

For those of us who haven't had a novel published yet, let's take our cue from him and be fearless. Write a book.