Close Encounters of the Literary Kind

Rachel Cohen on process, divining a book idea, and how to keep up your confidence as a new writer.

There’s a long strange period at the beginning of working on a project where you think there is a book here or a story or an essay, but you’d be hard put to say what it is. You couldn’t possibly explain it in a few sentences. Yet there’s a pull, there’s something. It’s almost like a divining rod. You’re walking around like, Is there water somewhere?

Some…