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If you really want to write, then shut yourself in a room, close the door, and WRITE. If you don't want to write, do something else. It's as simple as that.

Preserving that privacy between a writer and the work is important. You have to shut out all those voices that have reacted to your work.

'Shun security,' I advise aspiring novelists when they complain to me that they are stuck. 'Get disoriented. Maybe your agonizing writing block isn't agonizing enough. Your enemy is comfort.'

Writing is incredibly important to me as a way of handling the world, understanding how it works.

I think every writer has got to direct. If you don't direct, you can't protect your work. The only way to ensure that it's going to be as close as possible to what you put down on paper - and what you see and hear in your head - is to do it yourself.

Write for yourself. That's it. And write every day.

Writing is a necessary thing for me, just to keep myself level. It has beneficial effects on my life.

Mostly I have to try to censor myself so as not to write things that will hurt other people, or that will go too far.

The tough thing about writing is you go into a room alone, you close the door and you do your work.