I have my sympathies and also my critical views, and they aren't much of a secret, but my first job is to see and hear and think about what I've seen and heard.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I understand that it's incredibly difficult to watch what's happening on the news every day and not become inured to it. I've fallen victim to that myself, wanting to look away.
I'm a very sympathetic person, but that doesn't always come across in my work because I'm too busy being mad at everything.
I have a great deal of empathy for anyone who's having a hard time. I believe this ability to see another's viewpoint has served me well as a writer.
One day, I made a remark that I might work with people with mental illness, and somebody in the press heard it, and it was in the paper. And the more I thought about it and found out about it, the more I thought it was just a terrible situation with no attention. And I've been working on it ever since.
I recognize I have faults. I'm accountable for them, and I try to do what I can to correct them. I will say that it's unfortunate that everything I do is scrutinized to the point that it is. Frankly, I don't watch the news, I stay away from political conversations.
I can hardly express in words my deep feeling and sympathy for them, knowing as I do, the many serious handicaps and obstacles that will confront them in almost every walk of life.
I'm overwhelmed by the pain in the world; I'm affected by the news very much, and adding that to my work was becoming a little bit too much.
It's not very interesting to establish sympathy for people who, on the surface, are instantly sympathetic. I guess I'm always attracted to people who, if their lives were headlines in a newspaper, you might not be very sympathetic about them.
I'm a writer, not an activist. My job is to analyse things, to think them through and examine them.
My sympathies are Left. On paper and in the soul. But not in my heart or my guts.