When you read something you have written, you have to confront some of the lies you have been telling yourself.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
All writing is the same: It's just making up lies until it starts to sound like the truth. That's what I do.
It's really hard for me, every day, to confront my writing. It never gets easier over time.
When people ask me for secrets to writing, I say, 'Read to write.'
When people write lies about you, and you know that they are lies, that means that they don't know the truth.
The idea that you're not a writer until you're published is a lie.
I've always seen writing as a way of telling the truth. For me, writing is about truth. I have always tried to be faithful to my own experience.
As a writer of fiction, lying is the central thing to all books.
I have a hard time keeping a story straight when I tell the truth because when you start lying you have to remember what you said, and I'm not very good at that.
When you sit down to write, you have to be prepared to strip all of those voices away, all of the censors away, and talk about what you think the truth is, which I think is really the task of the writer - to get to the truth.
Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.