I don't think it's shameful to admit that some days your time can be better spent reading than writing.
The best part of being a writer for me is immersing myself in a fictional world, which is the opposite of being on social media. At the same time, if no one ever read my work, if I was writing solely for myself, I bet it would be lonely and a lot less fun.
I just think that people are complicated, both men and women. It happens that I write more about women.
Probably I, like a lot of people, became a writer in imitation of or in homage to the books I enjoyed. When you're so captivated by something, you think, could I do that? Hmm, let me try
I thought, if I write a book that is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, it's not going to mean that I will not get any criticism. I might as well write the book that I want to write.
My boarding school experience was the only thing I had strong enough feelings to write about for hundreds and hundreds of pages. I can still smell the formaldehyde of the fetal pigs in biology.
Ironically, writing a novel is not a way to sort out your confusion.
I don't think that I would ever, while writing, think to myself, "I need a little more psychological realism."
I just write the books that I think I would want to read.
I feel like people who criticize authors for being self-promotional fail to recognize that a lot of times their ability to continue writing hinges on sales and recognition. Some of it is for fun, some of it is for ego, but a lot of it is just writers trying to ensure longevity to their career.
I don't really have special rituals, but I don't try to write fiction unless I have a minimum of a few hours. For me, it takes a while to settle into a mode where I'm truly concentrating
She nodded, jotting something in her notebook. You’re writing that down? Has the interview started?” Lee, whenever you’re talking to a reporter, you’re being interviewed.
We all stood and gathered our backpacks and I looked at the floor around my chair to make sure I hadn’t dropped anything. I was terrified of unwittingly leaving behind a scrap of paper on which were written all my private desires and humiliations. The fact that no such scrap of paper existed, that I did not even keep a diary or write letters except bland, earnest, falsely cheerful ones to my family (We lost to St. Francis in soccer, but I think we’ll win our game this Saturday; we are working on self-portraits in art class, and the hardest part for me is the nose) never decreased my fear.
There are so many people who are so much better qualified to write about politics than I am.
I think I write what's interesting to me, and so if I'm reading I like to have a very thorough idea of a character in a book that's by someone else.
I'm not afraid of writing about sensitive subjects, but I want to be careful how I do so and I know not all readers will think I have been, of course.
