My first typewriter cost me $75. I can't tell you how many hours it took me to earn that money, or how proud I was of that object. I wrote my first books on it. They will never be published, but that's all right.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I was a prodigy who learned how difficult writing was only after getting published. I paid my dues later.
I never expected to earn money out of writing. In fact, the idea of getting published was too bourgeois. Then, in England, I realised that writing a book was something you could do without it being laughable.
My first book took five years to write and I made $1,000 on it. The second took three years and I made $3,000. All this time I was a housewife being supported by a husband. I was very lucky.
When I began to write and used a typewriter, I went through three drafts of a book before showing it to an editor.
I entered a poem in a poetry contest around 1987, and the poem won and I received $1,000 for it. That made me realize that maybe what I was writing was worth reading to people. After that, for some reason, I turned to novels and I've written mainly novels ever since.
If I weren't a writer, I think I might have thrown myself more enthusiastically into advertising. But, it's difficult to imagine being a diligent copywriter. It would be quite exasperating for me.
I published, privately, a collection of my serious poetry I had written over the years. I only published 50 copies, which I gave to friends, in a special deluxe edition. It was ridiculously expensive but I'm glad that I did it.
Writing wasn't about making money. I wanted to find fulfillment in writing and telling stories, and that's what's driven me.
I think my first story sold for $550. This was in 1954, and it seemed like quite a lot of money, and I said to myself, 'Hey, I'm a professional writer now.'
I didn't make any money from my writing until much later. I published about 80 stories for nothing. I spent on literature.