The worst story I ever wrote was after the conviction of Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay. My co-author and I wrote a piece for 'Fortune' saying everything's going to be different now.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
That's the irony in the work: the best stories are the worst things that happen. My best times were somebody else's worst.
When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family.
Mine is not a story to tell struggling writers.
I think the hardest stories we tell are always the ones about ourselves. And as a journalist, I was taught that I'm never supposed to put myself in the story. So I spent what, 11, 12 years of my life writing about other people so I don't have to face my own life.
For me, the worst writing generally just 'flips' things: this person's really a traitor; it was all a dream; etc. Nothing is so ruinous as a forced 'twist,' I think.
Writers have been in terrible situations and have yet managed to produce extraordinary work.
Writing is turning one's worst moments into money.
The only thing that infuriates me is that I have more unwritten stories in me than I can conceivably write in a lifetime.
When I was a child, writing was the worst possible choice of a career in my family. My father had always identified himself as a writer to my mother when they met. When they met, he was writing this great novel, there was no doubt about it.
I wrote the worst novel ever.