JD Salinger shows us how to do it

From the Guardian:

JD Salinger still isn't talking. The famously reclusive author wasn't persuaded to break his silence by a reporter from the Spectator, who made it as far as Salinger's doorstep in Cornish, New Hampshire before being turned away.

The journalist, Tom Leonard, said he heard the author shout "something that sounds like 'Oh, no!'" when told by his wife who was ringing his doorbell, and then saw "a tall but stooped figure in a blue tanktop" sidle "crab-like" out of his kitchen without meeting his eyes. It's hardly surprising: Salinger withdrew from public life in the 1950s, overwhelmed by the success of The Catcher in the Rye, and hasn't spoken to the media since, apart from a brief conversation with a New York Times reporter in 1974 when he said there was "a marvellous peace in not publishing ... I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm trying to do is protect myself and my work."

No new fiction has appeared from Salinger since the novella Hapworth 16, 1924 was published in 1965; although he is thought to have stacks of manuscripts in his New Hampshire home, his published works amount to short stories, including the 1961 novella Franny and Zooey, and 1953's Nine Stories as well as his single iconic novel. "I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure," he said in 1974.

(The rest of the article is here.)

This is taking to the extreme the feeling that I have had and I know others have too: that when you have a book, even though one that is nothing like as successful as Catcher in the Rye, nowhere near, you are suddenly exposed to the public in a way that I hadn't imagined and hadn't desired. And that can cause problems.

I am glad to say that I seem to have cured the anxiety and agoraphobia that have been making my life pretty difficult for the past few months, using a technique called EFT. I was getting quite desperate, I tried it, and there was an instant shift. Two days later, and it seems to have stayed. I don't know how it worked, why it worked, but it did. The world, which has been in black-and-white, or mostly grey, since December, is now in full technicolour. I feel blessed. I know that soon I'll be taking it for granted, but right now I am basking in the joy of spring!