Getting out of the way

From Steering the Craft, by Ursula K Le Guin:

'Some people see art as a matter of control. I see it mostly as a matter of self-control. It’s like this: in me there’s a story that wants to be told. It is my end; I am its means. If I can keep myself, my ego, my opinions, my mental junk, out of the way, and find the focus of the story, and follow the movement of the story, the story tells itself.'

Sounds easy, but it isn't. All that foolish prattle that gets in the way; the parrot on the shoulder that shrieks and must be hushed.