For that I am very grateful. I try to create a similar relationship with mine, giving it room to work the way it wants to work. What I have done at different times is either go to work late at night when I am too tired to stand up or do it first thing in the morning before I have had coffee or anything else, and I just sit down and start babbling on paper, not worrying about whether it makes any sense or not. You need to get this stuff out before the people smarter than you, your super ego or whoever, start kicking in. It's like doing an improvisation.
Failure has to be fun.
Cathy Young writes weekly for Oregon Live's Books Section and had the time of her life interviewing Jules Feiffer, one of her real-life heroes. Oregon Live would like to give special thanks to HarperCollins Children's Books and William Morrow and Company, the publishers of Jules Feiffer's children's books. I Lost My Bear is published by William Morrow. A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears .