Kenneth Tynan’s widow Kathleen, in her introduction to his letters, states, Writers hate to write, almost all of them . She goes on to describe, in loving remembrance, her husband, blocked as a writer, turning to his journals, where he might deliver himself of a self-punishing complaint about his own indolent and hateful character . Writers do chastise themselves, with seriousness and skill, as though it were a matter of personal failure not to be steadily equal to one’s talent—to the talent one has displayed formerly, or even concurrently with the present hiatus. Some turn with relief to letter writing or diaries, free of the pressure of perfection, choosing words to entertain or communicate. Happy at the prospect of a wholeheartedly interested listener, the writer engages a distant correspondent or some version of a private, non-artist self—the smaller self who stands always at the threshold of writing, like a person in a doorway who knows better than to enter the room.…