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I've always been interested in writing from the perspective of an outsider.

I was always an outsider, always standing outside, observing and trying to figure things out. Which is exactly what you need to do as a writer, I suppose.

Writing fiction was a way to take the ideas that troubled me or confused me and put them under pressure.

Writing is such a solitary thing, so it's nice, when I'm discouraged, to see people still have such faith in fiction.

I didn't go out of my way to get into this movie stuff. I think of myself as a writer.

In my early 20s, connecting with fiction was a difficult process. There seemed to be little rhyme or reason to what was meaningful, what convinced, and what made sense.

I cannot recall any moment of clarity about becoming a writer. I always liked to read. That's what did it.

I think that I had read so much fiction that the craft itself sort of sank into me. I didn't read any 'how to' books or attend any popular-fiction-writing classes or have a critique group. For many years into my writing, I didn't even know another author. For me, a lot of reading was the best teacher.

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 felt like I haven't had the typical experience of a novelist whose book becomes a movie.