An author who speaks about their own books is almost as bad as a mother who speaks about her own children.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Here's a confession: I hate parenting books. I hate the ones that are earnest and repetitive.
A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one, it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.
That's the most terrible thing about being an author - standing there at your mother's funeral, but you don't switch the author off. So your own innermost thoughts are grist for the mill. Who was it said - one of the famous lady novelists - 'unhappy is the family that contains an author'?
Moms in fiction and memoir get a bad rap.
Children simply don't make the distinction; a book is either good or bad. And some of the books they think are good are very, very bad indeed.
I've always been interested in writing about people, including young children who are not able to speak for themselves. As in my novel 'Black Water,' I provide a voice for someone who has died and can't speak for herself.
As a reader, I'm often put off by authors and story-lines without families or children and all of the angst and joy they bring with them.
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.
Many children's writers don't have children of their own.
I have never met an author who did not read voraciously as a child.