I feel so disassociated from my writing - whether it's in book form or magazine - that I sometimes have a hard time believing that it's mine.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
The act of writing is a way of tricking yourself into revealing something that you would never consciously put into the world. Sometimes I'm shocked by the deeply personal things I've put into books without realizing it.
I'm not a writer where I feel particularly blessed by great inspiration every day. I don't. I have to work really hard at it to try and say the things I'm concerned with.
Other people are talking about writing books about my life, or about some of the things I've done. I find it strange, but I also feel it's my life and my story, and I guess I better be the one to get it on paper the way it actually happened.
Each book I've done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find it, I stick with it.
I often turn to my books when my own writing is having a hard time.
With each book I write, I become more and more convinced that the books have a life of their own, quite apart from me.
When I'm writing, I am lost in my book. Except family and close friends, I don't care about what critics, publishers or readers might think.
It is so common to write autobiographical fiction in which your own experience is thinly disguised.
It's an awful feeling to write something that you feel is really important... and to feel that you're being published by people who really don't get it and/or don't really care.
My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.