And then if there was only some way to fix them, to make them better. Writing is the fix. Of course, once you get words down in a somewhat-publicly accessible medium, you're potentially dealing with a whole new set of those damned external reactions again. But still, what a relief to have them down. This is another association that seems less mysterious if you reverse the implied causality.
Many more people can write than are writers.
Writing is a unreliable way of making a living or inflating an ego, and most talented people decide, more or less early on, more or less reluctantly, that it's not worth the hassle. A solid reason for sticking with it, though, is that writing is one of the only jobs that allow erratic hours and a bottle close at hand. At the moment when I begin a book it is always lovely. I look at it, and I see that it is good. While I am at the first chapter of it it is so well balanced, there is such sweet agreement between the various part, as to make its entirety a marvellous harmony and generally, at that time, the last chapter of the book is the finest of all.