Q. How do you write?

A. Let him say who can! It begins with a fermentation or some sort of agreeable fever, which passes into ecstasy or intoxication. Sometimes it is like a seed, which grows, attracting all interest to itself, consuming all experiences, but still choosing and discarding. Sometimes I think I am some sort of medium, for it comes so easily, half unconsciously, hardly calculated at all! But it lasts at most 3 hours (from 9.00 to 12.00 usually). And when it is over, 'everything is as boring as ever!', until the next time. But it doesn't come to order, not when I please. It comes when it pleases. But best and most after some great catastrophe.

August Strindberg, interviewed