I used to write fiction, non-fiction, fiction, non-fiction and have a clear pattern because I'd need a break from one style when going into the next book.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
What I don't like is constructing a book that fits in with any kind of generic template, whether it's fiction or nonfiction.
Early on, I tried fiction, but I wasn't very good at it. I wrote a very bad novel that is thankfully sitting in a drawer somewhere.
There's always a bit of fiction in everything that I write.
I write both fiction and nonfiction. I begin my fiction with the main character. The story comes later.
I've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days.
I write in a very peculiar way. I think about a book for 25 or 30 years in a kind of inchoate way, and at one point or another, I realize the book is ready to be written. I usually have a character, a first line, and general idea of what the book is going to be about.
Each of my books is different from the last, each with its own characters, its own setting, its own themes. As a writer, I need the variety. I sense my readers do, too.
I tend to read more nonfiction, really, because when I'm writing I don't like to read other fiction.
I have no favourite genre or style but treat each novel with the same care, imagination and craftsmanship. It's as difficult to write a crime or a children's novel with a touch of style and grace as it is a literary novel.
I seem to turn out stories that violate the discipline of the short story form and don't obey the rules of progression for novels. I don't think about a particular form: I think more about fiction, let's say a chunk of fiction.