I never carry a notebook while walking around London. I just pick those things up. I'm very good at quizzes.
From Ruth Rendell
I never make notes; just a few small details when I'm writing, but nothing much. The plot is never written down. I will tell the story to myself, but I won't plan it. I'll speak the narrative in my head for a while.
I don't know that I am fascinated with crime. I'm fascinated with people and their characters and their obsessions and what they do. And these things lead to crime, but I'm much more fascinated in their minds.
I don't think the Barbara Vines are mysteries in any sense. The Barbara Vine is much more slowly paced. It is a much more in-depth, searching sort of book; it doesn't necessarily have a murder in it.
I am neurotic, but I live with it. I think most people are, anyway.
Some women say as they get older they're no longer noticed: they disappear. Men, for instance, don't see them. Nobody wants them. That doesn't happen to me because of who I am. Not because I'm any more scintillating company, but because I'm Ruth Rendell.
People want to marry me for companionship. No thanks! I've got my cats for that!
I went into a church and simply said, 'Goodbye.' It is the terrible unfairness of life. How could God allow cancer, poverty, the sheer unfairness of so many lives? That is the question which finishes it for me.
I just want to tell a good story, so I always ask myself, 'Are these people real to me?'
The things I write about are completely removed from my own life, but people want to know the characters better.
9 perspectives
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