My father had an invisible job outside of the house; I didn't know what he did. But my kids were privy to the ups and downs of a writer's life.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
My parents were avid readers. Both had ambitions to write that had been abandoned early in life in order to get on with life.
I've had a family my entire adult life; I started raising kids when I was 21. I suspect that being part of a family has probably informed my life as a writer as much as anything else has.
One of the things I learned from my father, and it did not serve me well at all, was that he was a successful writer, he earned a living. And it was a shock for me to find out that it was actually hard to make a living as a writer.
I really look up to writers who are able to write compressed, single-scene stories, where everything happens in a kitchen. But I just can't think that way. For me it would be impossible to write a story where I didn't know what someone's parents did and what their grandparents did and who they used to date.
I began my writing career in a very isolated place and time.
My father was a writer; I've known a lot of children of writers - daughters and sons of writers, and it can be a hard way to grow up.
My dad and mom divorced when I was around ten, and I didn't live with him after that, though he was close by and we saw each other weekly. I wasn't really aware that he was a writer; I didn't start reading his writing until I was about fifteen. It occurred to me then that my dad was kind of special; he's still one of my favorite writers.
I have two little children. I didn't want to be missing their childhood while I was away, busy writing about children.
I read a book a day when I was a kid. My family was not literary; we did not have any books in the house.
When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family. My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it.