If something's not working, it's wonderful to have a reader you can trust to say, 'Actually, you've gone off the deep end here'.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
An ideal reader is someone who doesn't know what on Earth you've been doing, who will look at it with absolute freshness and go, 'Oh, so that's what you've been up to.'
I suppose people might consider me a 'loose' reader, as I seem willing to read anything of quality thinking and prose.
Readers regularly ask what can go wrong but almost never what could positively surprise.
Failure has been my best friend as a writer. It tests you, to see if you have what it takes to see it through.
I remember how a man once got in touch with me to tell me that he was so engrossed in my book that he had to take a day off from work just so that he could finish reading it. Such kind of responses from my readers is extremely endearing, and it keeps me going.
When I'm working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it.
I would say readers can trust my work more than anyone else's.
When a book goes well, it abandons me. I am the most abandoned writer in the world.
There is a certain aesthetic pleasure in trying to imagine the unimaginable and failing, if you are a reader.
If a story isn't working, I'm simply unable to finish it. That's what usually tells me something is wrong.