Run fast, stand still - Excerpt from Zen in the Art of Writing

 

Run fast, stand still. This, the lesson from lizards. For all writers. Observe almost any survival creature, you see the same. Jump, run, freeze. In the ability to flick like an eyelash, crack like a whip, vanish like steam, here this instant, gone the next – life teems on earth.
In quickness is truth. The faster you blurt, the more swiftly you write, the more honest you are. In hesitation is thought. In delay comes the effort for a style, instead of leaping upon truth which is the only style worth deadfalling or tiger-trapping.
Run fast, leap up, turn on the light, but whatever you do, don’t look up. If you look up before you get the light on, it will be there. The Thing. The terrible Thing waiting at the top of the stairs. So run, blind; don’t look.