I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I have written, probably, more books for children than any other writer, from story-books to plays, and can claim to know more about interesting children than most.
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.
I resisted children's writing for a long time. I saw myself as a writer of literary fiction. But I had so much more fun writing kids' books.
I wrote eight full-length adult novels in my twenties. None of them were published.
For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.
I didn't get anything published until I was thirty-three, and yet I'd written five novels and six or seven plays. The plays, I should point out, were dreadful.
I've got a long list of books I wish I'd never written-and I've kept them all out of print for the past 20 years.
My first four books were not published because nobody wanted them. They were adult books, not kids' books.
I wrote a few children's books... not on purpose.