I think it's too easy to recount your unhappy memories when you write about yourself. You bask in your own innocence. You revere your grief. You arrange your angers at their most becoming angles.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
One area I have a huge amount of trouble in is writing about myself. I get a heavy, almost depressed feeling.
It's much easier to write when you're sad. But you can end up isolated and depressed because you almost need to put yourself in that situation to have that angst to write from.
Everything I write about either I have gone through or I know somebody has gone through, so it's very close to me, but sometimes it's about taking those feelings and exaggerating on them a little bit: being a bit more dramatic but still keeping them relatable.
There's always going to be a little bit of autobiographical content to everything. It's how you lend some authority to what you write - you give it that weight by drawing on your direct experiences and indirect experiences from people that you know well, or a little.
When I was first approached about doing an autobiography, I said, 'absolutely not.' But when I sat down, memories came pouring out. It wrote very quickly - I think there was an emotional impulse, because once I started in, the story itself carried me along. It was a very intense writing period and took a year and change to finish.
I can't remove the autobiographical slant from the things I write. You always bring yourself into what you're writing.
There are times when I'm really happy and I write something really sad, and vice versa.
Everything that I write is sort of autobiographical, and I don't know that I'm getting better, but I'm certainly running out of time.
I very much dislike writing about myself or my work, and when pressed for autobiographical material can only give a bare chronological outline which contains no pertinent facts.
My writing comes not from the happy moments, but from struggle and grief.