“If I could say anything… it is to keep going. Don’t go back and fix that first scene. Don’t go back and fix that dialogue. Write yourself a little note saying, ‘Put in first scene such-and-such,’ if you happen to think of something, then get a little stickum and stick that somewhere on the wall. But don’t go back, because going back is a trap. It keeps you from going forward. It keeps you from going ahead. Your first enemy, of course, is yourself. Yourself is also that little critic that sits on your shoulder that says, ‘This is terrible’… You have to wipe him off your shoulders and keep going. He’s the one who says, ‘Go back. Go back’… You must get it down on paper…. you must sit down and write with no attachment to outcome. Try to distance yourself from what’s going to happen to this… No attachment to outcome. I don’t know where I ever heard it, but I put it on a little piece of paper, and I had it framed. I have it right in front of me. When I get bogged down I say, ‘No attachment to outcome. don’t worry about what’s going to happen to this. Just write the next word.’”

– Anna Hamilton Phelan (Gorillas in the Mist, Girl, Interrupted)