Many fiction writers write for the critics or for themselves; they forget the common reader. I never do. I don't think journalism clashes with my fiction; on the contrary, it helps enormously.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
When I'm writing, I am lost in my book. Except family and close friends, I don't care about what critics, publishers or readers might think.
I was never a good journalist, because I would make things up. A lot of people frowned on that, which is why I ended up in fiction.
I reach my readers regardless of what the critics have written.
I enjoy journalism; anybody does. You see the results immediately; you've got an immediate audience instead of having to wait for your audience as you do if you're writing a book, and you get a bit of money coming in, and you can see more clearly how you're paying the bills. But it's not a good position for the serious novelist to be in.
It's not the journalists; it's the critics that I can't understand. I've never understood what kind of a person would want to criticize someone else's work.
I write as well as I can. I'm a journalist at heart, so it's the story that matters.
While I love to read contemporary fiction, I'm not drawn to writing it. Perhaps it's because the former journalist in me is too inhibited by the press of reality; when I think about writing of my own time I always think about nonfiction narratives. Or perhaps it's just that I find the present too confounding.
One thing that writers have in common is that they are readers first. They have read lots and lots of stuff, because they're just infested with lots of stuff.
What happens is I speak to people outside of my circle of friends and they have already formed an opinion of me based on the things that people have written. That is the effect of journalism on my life, and sometimes it isn't very pleasant.
I personally read criticism - at least by writers I enjoy - to stimulate a conversation in my own mind, and I like to think that's the function I serve for others.
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