Writing novels preserves you in a state of innocence - a lot passes you by - simply because your attention is otherwise diverted.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
To me, novels are a trip of discovery, and you discover things that you don't know and you assume that many of your readers don't know, and you try to bring them to life on the page.
The fact is that in this day and age I don't think any novelist can assume that a book will get attention.
The act of writing is a way of tricking yourself into revealing something that you would never consciously put into the world. Sometimes I'm shocked by the deeply personal things I've put into books without realizing it.
All writing is an act of self-exploration. Even a grocery list says something about you; how much more does a novel say?
Nothing induces me to read a novel except when I have to make money by writing about it. I detest them.
Writers have to be careful not to confuse personal attention with the attention that's going towards the book.
And the nice thing about writing a novel is you take your time, you sit with the character sometimes nine years, you look very deeply at a situation, unlike in real life when we just kind of snap something out.
At least for me, writing a book is continual exposure to blind spots. There were things I wanted to be true and wanted to believe, but it always got more complicated in the fiction.
Writing a novel is one of those modern rites of passage, I think, that lead us from an innocent world of contentment, drunkenness, and good humor, to a state of chronic edginess and the perpetual scanning of bank statements.
Novel-writing is a bit like deception. You lie as little as you possibly can. That's the way I do it, anyway.