The public figure of the writer, the writer-character, the 'personality-cult' of the author, are all becoming for me more and more intolerable in others, and consequently in myself.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My great fear of being attacked or trivialized by my contemporaries made me concentrate on what I was trying to do as a writer. It forced me to draw some conclusions that were my own.
I know when I go and see a writer, the first thing I think to myself is, 'Are they the character in the book?' You just can't help it; it's the way people are.
As a writer, I tend to be drawn to marginal people - writers, poet-prophets, seers, eccentrics - who embody the deeper ambivalences of their societies and bear deeper witness to their world than the famous figures we are used to celebrating, or demonizing, in our histories.
I think part of what I like about being a fiction writer is that I can inhabit something that's beyond the limits of my own personality.
As a writer, you rely on whatever makes you up as a person, whether those things are twisted and nasty or otherwise.
Sometimes I get extremely disturbed with the things that are written. But you can't do anything about it. As a celebrity, you are putting yourself out there to be judged, and that's fine. I am now learning not to get affected by such things. I am building my career and making choices that I think are right while minding my own business.
I enjoy being influenced by other writers.
There is something really horrific for any human being who feels he is being consumed by other people. I'm talking about a writer's critics, who don't address what you've written, but want to probe into your existence and magnify the trivia of your life without any sense of humor, without any sense of context.
I believe that, like most writers, my personality comes through in the fiction. So in that respect my writing can't be like any other author's really.
Part of me becomes the characters I'm writing about. I think readers feel like they are there, the way I am, as a result.