For me, writing isn't a way of being public or private; it's just a way of being. The process is always full of pain, but I like that. It's a reality, and I just accept it as something not to be avoided.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
If you're writing, you're starting in private. It can really be this amazing, private, freeing experience. Forget that it's for other people - that comes in later.
You know when you're writing, and it's just you and the computer screen, and you never think that anyone is ever going to read it... you're able to say private things when you're writing.
Writing is just something I've always done. It's just kind of the reality of who I am.
Writing is something I've always done on the side. I thought that no one would be interested, so I kept it to myself.
The act of writing is a kind of catharsis, a liberation, but I never really concerned myself with that. I write because it interests me.
Writing is sweat and drudgery most of the time. And you have to love it in order to endure the solitude and the discipline.
I wish I could write more make-believe. It's a lot easier to write about hard times and when things are going wrong. But I've never been a private person.
I can't complain that I've had a public all through my writing life, but people don't quite know what I've written. People don't read you too closely. Perhaps, after I've died, they'll look at my stuff, and read it through, and find there's more in it. That may be wrong, but that's what I comfort myself with.
I'm the most communal person that exists and a very solitary person. So I think writing is a form of getting to the community and being alone, and it's the best of both possible worlds.