Quote

I wasn't always a novelist. I began my writing career as a journalist, working on an afternoon newspaper in Sydney, Australia, doing the crime beat and court reporting. Having grown up in a small country town, I felt as though I had nothing to write about.

I never studied writing, but I'd always been a reader and had a secret fantasy about being a writer.

This sounds like a cliche, but I always wanted to write. After college, I did some writing and realized very quickly that it's hard to make a living as a writer. At that point, I was more interested in fiction writing.

I was an avid reader, but never thought seriously about writing a novel until I was in my thirties. I took no formal fiction-writing courses and never thought about these categories when I wrote my first novel.

For a while, when I got out of college, I tried to write fiction. I'd grown up more around novelists, and my initial attraction was to write fiction. But I was much less suited for it. I always struggled to figure out what people were saying or doing in a particular moment.

I've been writing since I was really young, so I considered myself a writer for a really long time.

I was always meant to be a writer. I've felt that way since I was a child.

I'd never written a novel before, and I wrote a novel, and that turned out OK.

Getting to the point where I was ready to write a book has been about a 20-year journey of being, really honestly, too afraid to try - which I think is pretty common for people who are trying to write a large piece of fiction.

I can't say that I ever actually decided to become a writer. It kind of snuck up on me.