I really don't know what I am going to do in terms of what a book is going to be about until I actually start writing it!
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I start any book, I have no idea what I'm going to do.
While I'm writing, I'm also the first reader, and I want to write a book where I'm excited about what happens next.
After a while, you start to realize that you should write a book you would want to read. I try to write a book I would enjoy.
I write in a very peculiar way. I think about a book for 25 or 30 years in a kind of inchoate way, and at one point or another, I realize the book is ready to be written. I usually have a character, a first line, and general idea of what the book is going to be about.
I can't even say I've begun yet, but I'm trying on the idea that there is a book in my future.
When I begin writing, I have no idea what my novels are ultimately going to be about. I don't have a plot. I never consider a theme. I don't make notes or outlines.
It's true that I have spoken about doing a book before, but then everyone you speak to is planning to write a book.
My shorthand answer is that I try to write the kind of book that I would like to read. If I can make it clear and interesting and compelling to me, then I hope maybe it will be for the reader.
I always say that, for me, writing a book is like a wacky Greyhound bus trip - I know where I'm starting and where I'll end up, but I have no idea what will happen along the way.
I never know what I'm going to write next. If I'm still writing the book but I'm very near the end, and I begin to think of what I'd like to do next, then I'll know that what I'm writing is in hand. I'll think of an ending and it will be fine.