From Outside the Box

May Sarton. Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing W.W. Norton and Company 

You can't afford self-pity. Too much is at stake. Your whole life maybe. Use your bean start thinking. 

It seems to me I have been doing nothing else!

Going around in circles isn't thinking. You have to try and find some way to get outside it, don't you know? Try making a poem as if it were a table, clear and solid, standing outside you. pg 31-32