You do not have to be particularly smart, or fast, or even very widely and deeply knowledgeable in any way the world considers ‘useful.’ You need only to be willing, and pitted, and stubborn enough to find out the base matter on which you are building your story. Finding out what you need  to know specifically to convince a reader, you learn what your story requires; you may even discover what your story is truly about. And of course the ILLUSION you create in working this magic is that you know everything. It all about that illusion, and I say often, only half joking, that one really ends up writing fiction because one i a ‘natural born liar.’ Try to ingest everything that’s ever been written that’s worth remembering, and write out of that. And as you mature and grow, then, you find that you are no longer quite imitating, finally, but vying. Challenging. Trying to be as worthy of the respect of the living and the dead, by being as faithful to and respectful of this blessed and beautiful task as they all were and are, all the good men and women who came before us, and are with us who have made and making a path through the terrifying silence, for all of us to take. Trust that. ~ Richard Bausch