About Hilary Mantel: Dame Hilary Mary Mantel is an English writer whose work includes personal memoirs, short stories, and historical fiction.
Fiction leaves us so much work to do, allows the individual so much input; you have to see, you have to hear, you have to taste the madeleine, and while you are seemingly passive in your chair, you have to travel.
If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem. But don't make telephone calls or go to a party;...
Once you're labeled as mentally ill, and that's in your medical notes, then anything you say can be discounted as an artefact of your mental illness.
I am usually protective of my work, not showing it to anyone until it has been redrafted and polished.
