Readers would email me and say, 'Please write a novel about so-and-so,' but it has to come from yourself and not so much from your readership.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
There are some people who have been reading me for years, and they keep saying kind things about the writing. That's what you're writing for, to get people to respond to it.
I try to write about things, places, events, and phenomena I know about personally. That helps make the novels more genuine.
The things I write are for those who are willing to accept a new relationship between the reader and the author.
Writing a novel is like knocking on a door that will never open. You are so desperate to get in, you will say or do anything. You feel: please take my novel.
You're a reader as well as a writer, so write what you'd want to read.
A novel is a great act of passion and intellect, carpentry and largess. From the very beginning, I wrote to explain my own life to myself, and I invited readers who chose to make the journey with me to join me on the high wire.
To make it interesting and worth doing, writing a novel has to be a leap into the unknown. I have to be unsure if I can write it; otherwise, I won't want to.
I want prose fiction to be recognized as that, and I'm not interested in writing as it becomes more personal.
Novels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic. Self-expression? Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself.
I just try to write the best story I can, a story I would love to read, and hope that readers feel the same.
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