Passage 2

Questions 16—20 are based on the following passage.

When people ask me how I started writing, I find myself describing an urgent need that Ifelt to work with language. Having said that, I did not know for a long time what I was lookingfor. It was not until I followed this feeling to its source that I discovered I had a passion forwriting. With some encouragement from my colleagues, I had one of my poems published. This bit of success, however, was the point where my problem began.

Back in 1978, I had to travel between three different campuses in the morning,teaching freshman composition. Afternoons I spent taking my daughter to her ballet and horse-ridinglessons. I composed my lectures on the way, and that was all the thinking time I had. When I returned home, there was not enough of me left for writing after a full working day.

As a way out, I decided to get up two hours before my usual time. My alarm was set for

5:00 a.m. The first day I shut it off because I had placed it within arm's reach. The second dayI set two clocks, one on my night table, and one out in the hallway. I had to jump out of bed andrun to silence it before my family was awoken. This was when my morning writing began.

Since that first morning in 1978, I have been following the habit to this day, not making oraccepting many excuses for not writing. I wrote my poems in this manner for nearly ten years before my first book was published. When I decided to write a novel, I divided my, two hours:the first for poetry, the second for fiction. Well or badly, I wrote at least two pages a day. This is how my novel, The Line of the Sun, was finished. If I had waited to have the time, I would still be waiting to write my novel.

What I got out of getting up in the dark to work is the feeling that I am in control. For many people,the initial sense of urgency to create easily dies away because it requires making thetough decision: taking the time to create, stealing it from yourself if it's the only way.