Everyone said, 'Well, you're very old for a first novel,' and I said, 'How do you write when you haven't lived? How do you write when you have no experience? How do you write straight out of university?'
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There's a lot of young authors out there, and people do seem to forget: in order to write well, you do need to have some experience.
I went to college, but I learned to write by reading - and writing.
I am not an academic who happens to have written a novel. I am a novelist who happens to be quite good academically.
I write about my life and my own experience, but I also write about things that I have no knowledge of whatsoever.
One good reason for writing novels based on your life is that you have something to read in old age when you've forgotten what happened.
I've always been a writer because I've always been a student. My mom's a retired professor, so I come from a very academic background. I love writing, you know?
Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.
Well, I always wanted to write from the time I was very little, and my mother encouraged me. She wrote a journal from the time she was 15 up until about the age of 76.
I never thought about writing. I was married young, I was still in college, as we did then, and I had two babies before I was 25, and I loved them, and I loved taking care of them, but I was a little bit cuckoo, staying at home and not having a creative outlet.
My early life had a lot to do with my origins as a writer, but I didn't get into doing any writing at all until I was about 35 years old.