I have one main reader, Miriam Gomez, my wife. She reads everything I write - I have not finished writing something and she is already reading it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
If I think of a reader while I am writing, the only reader who really matters for me is my wife. It's most important to me that she likes what I write.
I want to write so well that a person is 30 or 40 pages in a book of mine... before she realizes she's reading.
I had begun reading earlier than most because my sister Emmy Lou, no doubt to keep me from bothering her, decided it was easier to teach me to read stories to myself rather than to read them to me, as she had been doing.
I'm a sporadic reader. I have moments when I can't stop... then I kind of forget that I can read. But then I go, 'Oh God, yeah, books!'
I read a lot. I am an inveterate reader. I always have a novel going.
I think the reason I don't read is because, when I'm reading, I feel like I'm missing out on something else. You know, What are my friends doing? Where's my girlfriend?
The novelist in me is probably hiding behind all the stories I write, looking for ways to connect them and continue the conversation with readers. Maybe I'm writing one long narrative, and each book, however different from the last, is just a chapter.
My perfect reader doesn't just read - he or she devours books.
While I'm writing, I'm also the first reader, and I want to write a book where I'm excited about what happens next.
Margot Livesey, my dear friend, reads all the drafts of what I write, and I read hers. We have an intense working relationship. I've been really lucky to know her. She's a great reader and teacher as well as an astonishingly good writer.