When my horse is running good, I don’t stop to give him sugar.

What does Faulkner mean? Does it mean he loved horses and put them everywhere in his work? Or maybe it means your writer and your editor should be far away, divorced, like badly divorced (is there another way?)—like not even in the same city anymore. Writer is writing, editor don’t come around with sugar cubes, don’t come around at all, until later, when the draft is in the stable, then bust out the brush, mane conditioner, and oats. Like maybe you should wait an hour, a day, or maybe even just a dinner before you go and look at a fresh draft…Or, maybe that is not what is meant at all. Maybe Faulkner is saying the working writer doesn’t need sugar, ever. Write to write. Maybe most working writers should be like Woody Allen, a man who has never seen–outside of the editing room–any of his own films. Let’s forget the sugar. When you are “running good” don’t fuck with it, period. Don’t make coffee, don’t surf the net. Don’t even feel excited (a form of sugar). Just run. Run, run, run, until it’s not so good. Maybe?