>As I struggle to write both nonfiction and fiction well, I feel like a circus rider balancing with one foot on the nonfiction quarter horse and one foot on the fiction Arabian.

The quarter horse does pretty much what I want it to do; I just have to keep it moving at a steady pace. But the Arabian is full of unpredictable spirit; I have to be hyper-alert to its signals and keep it from veering too much in it own direction and stretching my precarious stance into an unsustainable split.