Fay Weldon in Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen:
"If you persist with your novel, you will find it difficult to finish…. You will go on holiday, break an arm, finish with your boyfriend, or start another affair; quarrel with your parents, burn down your flat–anything, to put off the actual finishing of the work. You may very well not even understand what you are doing.
" 'But I couldn’t have wanted to break my arm,' you’ll say.
" 'Your right arm,' I’ll say, 'your writing arm. Funny it wasn’t your left.'"