The book demands what the book demands.

Whenever I first start writing, I am always aware of other writers and how I compare.  I'm even more aware of how other people are going to like or dislike my book.

But when I really get going, I simply forget about these factors.  It isn't that they don't matter -- obviously they do -- but they simply aren't salient to the process.

Writing for me is writing -- I'm not choosing quality, or subject, or any of those things.  It all gets focused down to what I'm doing, and doing it the best I can, and everything else sort of recedes into the background.  I don't care if someone else is better or worse, or if people are going like the end result, because I'm trying to write this the best I can to my own satisfaction.

The deeper I get into a book, the less it matters what anyone else might think.

When I'm done, I can poke my head out and ask -- well, did this work?  Will anyone care?

But while I'm writing it, it's such an internal process that it isn't that I force these concerns out -- they simply disappear.  The book itself seems to demand what it demands, the book itself is the quality of what it is.

I'm aware of flaws, of things that don't work.  But it is an intrinsic, inherent part of the process, not a concern about what people will think.

It's really a saving grace.