Narrative becomes the way you make sense of chaos. That's how you focus the world. It's the only reason you should ever try this writing job.
It's good not only to realize that you can't please all of the people all of the time, but that you don't want to. There's a certain type of reader that you don't ever want to write for.
I love to write, so it rarely seems like work - even when it gets arduous.
I found that I could write two kinds of short stories: I could write very absurd, kind of surrealistic, funny stories; or I could write very dark, realistic - hyper-realistic - stories. I was never happy with that, because I couldn't meld the two.
It's very simple. If you learn how to write well, to write with depth, cream will rise to the top. You'll get published. But, there is no secret.
I was not going to use writing for advertising or journalism. I would tend bar, load trucks, chauffeur - do whatever it took. But from the moment I took my first writing workshop, I was a writer.
