In the fall of 1989, I was writing 600-word columns at the 'Herald.' My heart always was in long-form narrative writing, though. It's what I cut my teeth on at the 'Boston Phoenix.'
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I've been writing, in one way or another, for as long as I can remember.
I used to love writing in my journal.
I wrote about four novels before I wrote a word of journalism.
I had an insanely long commute - New York to D.C. - when I worked at 'National Geographic.' I hate to waste time, so I spent my time by writing about my life on the premise that I might be able to pitch those as short essays to magazines. It wasn't until later that I realized that I was writing a book.
I was an angst-y journal writing kid.
I write pretty quickly. Write pretty fast. I was an old press service man. That was part of the necessity of that occupation.
As I said, I had no publisher for What a Carve Up! while I was writing it, so all we had to live off was my wife's money and little bits I was picking up for journalism.
I can't remember a time when I didn't write or make up stories, because it seemed to come with reading.
I come from a long line of people that write. My folks ran a weekly newspaper.
Since childhood, I wrote a lot of fiction, a lot of stories, but I most loved writing essays.