After the war, when my husband came home, we had two more children, and domesticity for a while prevailed combined with beginning the work I had always wanted to do, which was writing a book.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
For 10 or 11 years, I had my kids, I wrote four or five books, and I was working all the damn time.
I wrote every day. I don't think I could have written 'Just Kids' had I not spent all of the 80s developing my craft as a writer.
I did have a child, and I was reading a lot of picture books to her, but at the same time writing a children's book was something that I'd been wanting to do for many years, pretty much since the start of my career.
As much as I love my daughters, I wasn't happy with only being a stay-at-home-dad, and my wife encouraged me to try, to really try, at being a writer. More than anything, I didn't want to let her down.
One of the things that made me try writing novels was I could take time off to be with the kids. That's the practical side of what I love about the writing life.
Once I was able to take care of myself and my children, I then wanted to share.
I knew I wanted to be a writer and I knew if I had a wife and family, I would neglect something, and I was afraid it wouldn't be the writing.
I had achieved the most important things in my life when I married Joan and had the sons. Given the choice between Joan and the boys, and being a writer, I world give up being a writer without a blink.
I wrote my first books when I was single and then I got married and then had a kid and there were different things happening in my life.
I always knew that I wanted to live with books, even as a child, because we traveled a lot. Home was the book to which I came back every evening.