“Agree the world into being”
From M John Harrison:
Writing fiction is such a rest from reality, not because you “get lost in a secondary world” or any of that bullshit, but because of this: you can begin a book by saying, “Wednesday evening at a quarter to six, and the traffic was a little lighter than usual.” Whereas if you said that aloud in the real world, someone would immediately be telling you that, if anything, the traffic was slightly worse today than yesterday. Writing is the pure relief of not having to discuss everything that happens in an attempt to agree the world into being; it is, for instance, the reverse of Twitter. Don’t let anyone tell you there’s anything else to it. In fact, don’t tell anyone you read this & don’t discuss it with anyone.