Quote

I've written something like 17 novels, which isn't bad, I suppose, but my father wrote 120 books, my mother 40. In comparison, I'm lazy.

When I stopped performing for 16 years and lived in Michigan and was married and raising my children, I wrote about four or five books. I haven't published them. I just haven't gotten around to it for several reasons.

There are books all around me... I don't read as much as I used to, but I always have a book or two going.

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

I've written a lot of books now; I've been published for over 30 years. I hope with every book I learn something new, and with every new novel I try to improve the process of writing.

I take six or seven years to write really small books. There is a kind of aesthetic of leanness, of brevity.

While I do, of course, now feel the pressure having had books that have been very successful, I just know I have to concentrate on writing for myself. I can't worry about genres or markets or what might be commercial or not. That never works.

I'm such a fangirl when it comes to other writers. I read 250 books a year, and I'm always talking up books by other authors.

I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad.