It was really written as most, I think, books are by writers - for themselves. There was something that just had to be written, in a way that it had to be written. If you know what I mean.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Just why I sent it to the publishers would be hard to say, but when I had finished it I felt that it was literature, because it is real and because it was well written. And I know that the world wants such things.
The books are all very, very different so the publishers really had to be different too.
I don't know who said that novelists read the novels of others only to figure out how they are written. I believe it's true. We aren't satisfied with the secrets exposed on the surface of the page: we turn the book around to find the seams.
It wasn't books that inspired me to write. For me, inspiration was simple, immediate: I got it from eating, dancing, talking. I got it from life lived, things touched, from sensuality, from love of life, from our irrefutable connection to the earth.
I'd always been a big reader, and I loved books, and I always thought writing would be a great way to get by in the world.
I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries.
I am a big believer in the fact that all authors really write only one book.
I don't think that books are wondrous, magical things that come from nowhere. It's important that a book has clues about where and how it was written.
Books aren't written - they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it.
I don't think there was a particular book that made me want to write. They all did. I always wanted to write.