One constant writing ritual, no matter what I'm writing, is that I cannot write if people are around me. It wigs me out - the idea that someone is reading as I'm writing stuff.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When you're writing, you're conjuring. It's a ritual, and you need to be brave and respectful and sometimes get out of the way of whatever it is that you're inviting into the room.
You write alone, but you write hoping that there will be readers who will connect with what you write, and it's so wonderful and amazing - I can't even tell you - when that actually happens.
I'm such an antsy type of person. I can't write in a room without other people around. I write in coffee shops.
The tough thing about writing is you go into a room alone, you close the door and you do your work.
Writing is something I've always done on the side. I thought that no one would be interested, so I kept it to myself.
Whenever you write for someone else, you're always aware - sometimes overtly, other times at an almost cellular, subliminal level - of the rules about what you can and can't do.
When I write, I don't like to be around any humans.
I'm certainly afraid of not being able to write for some reason. I guess I've had spells of not necessarily writer's block, but something like that. I find that pretty terrifying.
Writing is, by its nature, interior work. So being forced to be around people is a great gift for a novelist. You get to be reminded, daily, of how people think, how they speak, how they live; the things they worry about, the things they hope for, the things they fear.
People write to me all the time, and I write back.