“It is with unbelievable difficulty that my ideas arrange themselves into any sort of order in my head. They circle there obscurely, they ferment to the point where they stir me, fire me, cause my heart to palpitate; and in the midst of all this emotion I see nothing clearly; I cannot write a word, I must wait. 

Imperceptibly, the great movement subsides, order succeeds chaos, everything finds its proper place; but slowly, and only after a long and confused agitation.

Have you ever been to the opera in Italy? While the scene is being changed in the great theatres there, an air of disorder prevails, which is disagreeable and lasts for quite a while: the sets are all muddled together; on every side there is a heaving and a pulling, which it is disturbing to watch; you are afraid it is all going to topple over. 

And yet little by little everything finds its place, nothing is missing, and you are astonished to see emerge from all this tumult a delightful spectacle. This process is more or less what goes on in my head when I am trying to write. If only I had learnt to wait, and only afterwards to render in all their beauty the things I had seen in my mind's eye, few writers would have surpassed me. […]

Hence comes the extreme difficulty I have in writing. My manuscripts crossed out, scribbled on, muddled, indecipherable-bear witness to what they have cost me. There is not one of them that I have not had to copy out four or five times before giving it to the printer.”

- Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Confessions

The writers’ curse