I'm very secretive. I'll write a whole novel and revise it, which might take me two years or more, and the people I know best don't know what I'm writing about.
In many cultures, women are sometimes literally kept from learning to read or from going to school.
There's the belief that we can't be smart enough to write. And certainly censorship of women, too.
You have to write fiction that mirrors the actual world, which has people of all sorts in it.
I heard a white writer say, 'Oh, I'd never put black people in my writing, I'm afraid I would offend someone by doing it wrong.' I can't bear that!
There is a lot of censorship about writing that's exerted from all directions, from families or governments and society, even the fear of being offensive in some way.
Little children are all writers.
When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're writers then, and when they get to be young teenagers they're not anymore. You might go and talk to them about writing, and they'll be very self-conscious or will have detached themselves from the group.
I love it when people can help me with my work, so I do show it.
I get to a certain point, and I think in a novel it's about the third draft, when I want other eyes on it.
You can't tell a writer they should just be more confident.
