Mr. Shawn [William Shawn, legendary editor of The New Yorker from 1952-1987] understood the disjunct kinship of creative work -every kind of creative work- and time. The most concise summation of it I've ever encountered was his response to a question I asked him just before we closed my first New Yorker profile and he sent it off to press. After all those one-on-one sessions discussing back-door plays and the role of the left-handed comma in the architectonics of basketball -meanwhile The New Yorker magazine hurtled toward its deadlines- I finally said in wonderment, "How can you afford to use so much time and go into so many things in such detail with just one writer when this whole enterprise is yours to keep together?"
He said, "It takes as long as it takes."
As a writing teacher, I have reported that statement to two generations of students. If they are writers, they will never forget it.
-Draft No. 4, On the Writing Process, John McPhee