Since childhood, I wrote a lot of fiction, a lot of stories, but I most loved writing essays.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I'll be writing essays long after I've stopped writing fiction. There is this unusually broad range in the non-fiction, but if you look at what I'm capable of as a novelist, I'm more limited.
I had been writing fiction since I was in eighth grade, because I loved it.
I write essays to clear my mind. I write fiction to open my heart.
I've always loved writing.
I wrote fiction during my entire childhood, from age 4 to 18, and started writing plays when I went to Yale and Oxford.
I've been writing stories since I was a kid. I love writing stories.
I first started writing fiction in college because I was attracted to beautiful sentences. I loved to read them. I wanted to write them.
I spent several years acquiring the obsessive, day-to-day discipline that's needed if you want to write professionally, then several more, highly valuable years studying fiction writing at the University of Iowa.
I tried writing fiction as a little kid, but had a teacher humiliate me, so didn't write again until I was a senior in college.
Novels are my favorite to write and read. I do like writing personal essays, too. I'm not really a short story writer, nor do I tend to gravitate to them as a reader.