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I didn't know anything about writers. It never occurred to me they were regular people and that I could grow up to become one, even though I loved to make up stories inside my head.

I think most serious writers, certainly in the modern period, use their own lives or the lives of people close to them or lives they have heard about as the raw material for their creativity.

I don't like writing with real people in mind.

All I can guess is that when I write, I forget that it's not real. I'm living the story, and I think people can read that sincerity about the characters. They are real to me while I'm writing them, and I think that makes them real to the readers as well.

Writers shouldn't have lives that are interesting. It gets in the way of your work.

I think there are a lot more writers who are actors than you know; they just don't have roles on famous TV shows that you recognize.

The fact is fiction is always a representation of life, sometimes the lives of famous people.

If you write a story based on a real person, you're trapped by the details of the real person and his life. It gets in the way of writing your own story.