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I had to sell my house and make a lot of sacrifices to become a writer, and it sucks not to get taken seriously.

I was living in a large apartment with no furniture, just a typewriter, and because I had nothing else to do with my time, it made me take my writing seriously.

I wrote what I felt I had to write, and I'm willing to put my own sanity and my reputation behind it.

I started seriously applying myself to writing fiction immediately after I finished graduate school. By 'seriously,' I mean that, instead of noodling along on a story, finishing it or not as the mood struck me, I set out to complete what I started, to polish it to the best of my ability, and to send out the finished story.

Writing makes you feel better, to get it all out.

And, you know, I liked writing humor. Well, I should say, I wanted to write seriously, but it kept turning funny.

All writers want to know that someone is reading their work, taking them seriously. It provides a kind of moral support.

I really - I don't take my work that seriously, and I think that's what keeps me loose. If I try to write, if I catch myself trying to write, I'll fall right on my face. I'll see it. If I see in the prose that I'm - 'Boy, look at me writing,' I rewrite it. I rewrite it because I don't, because I think it's distracting.

I take my work seriously.