Listening for the Story

I never had any real schedule, I’m too sloppy, and I can’t force my work. If I have a novel going I write two or three hours in the morning, and maybe do some revising in the afternoon, and all the rest of the time the novel is going on somewhere in my head. If I don’t have anything particular going, as is the case right now, I wander around in my head listening for a story or a poem. I spend a lot of time doing mail and other stuff, but all the time I am listening for the story, or the poem, or whatever it is that might come.

URSULA K. LE GUIN