The art of the novelist is not unrelated to the illness of multiple personality disorder. It's a much milder form. But the better the book, the nearer to the padded cell you are.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
It's safe to say that all poets are manic-depressives, but fiction writers are on that scale, too.
To some extent, all authors are a little schizophrenic. We lead most of our lives in solitary confinement, living and breathing the books that we're writing.
Sometimes I think that novelists suffer from P.C.S.: Perpetual Childhood Syndrome.
If you want to know why all writers are a little crazy read 'The Midnight Disease' by Alice W. Flaherty. She talks about the drive to write, writer's block, and the creative brain. I know what's wrong with me!
The function of the novel is the exploration of the human condition. Really, that's what it's all about.
Modernist fiction is tied to problems of writers. Self-glorifying. Existential struggle. This has not been a big part of genre writing.
It is difficult to write about any form of mental disease, especially your own, without sounding as if you were examining a bug under glass.
I'm not over-enamored of complicated books, and wonder if it's more for the author's ego than anything else?
Well, I think in my first two novels, both the characters are pretty neurotic, which I would say that I am.
The novel is resilient, and so are novelists.