I think most writers' houses are disappointing. What's much more atmospheric and interesting are the places they wrote about.
I'm such a fangirl when it comes to other writers. I read 250 books a year, and I'm always talking up books by other authors.
I'm not interested in characters who aren't broken. I'm not interested in happy people. It just doesn't draw me as a writer.
Male critics and men in the publishing industry want from their women writers what they want from their wives. I'm interested in presenting characters that are more challenging, threatening, complicated and unpredictable.
Well, I'm a slow writer. For me, a good day is a page, maybe a page and a half. I'd love to be more efficient, but I am not.
All writers know how important a good title is. It's the first thing readers see, along with a knock-your-socks-off cover - a seductive 'come hither' for the story within.
The Writer: [voiceover] It happens sometimes. Friends come in and out of our lives, like busboys in a restaurant.
Richard Hugo taught me that anyone with a desire to write, an ear for language and a bit of imagination could become a writer. He also, in a way, gave me permission to write about northern Montana.
That's why I love being a writer. My imagination can take me places I may never see except in my mind's eye.
I've been a writer for 42 years and, yes, it is a full time job for me. Not a hobby, but serious work.
Taking on challenging projects is the way that one grows and extends one's range as a writer, one's technical command, so I consider the time well-spent.
Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.
Reviewers are certainly entitled to their own opinions. I've become buddies with enough writers and directors, and to be perfectly honest, the ones that have lasted a long time don't pay a lot of attention to the reviews.
I don't have as tight a time limit anymore but I still write in long marathon sessions and then I won't write for a while, I'm not a write-every-day writer.
I resisted children's writing for a long time. I saw myself as a writer of literary fiction. But I had so much more fun writing kids' books.
I never bought the excuse of not having time to write. If you really want to do it, you're either going to find those hours or eventually decide not to be a writer.
As a writer, you get to play, you get alter time, you get to come up with the smart lines and the clever comebacks you wish you'd thought of.
The first time I went to Helene Hanff's apartment at 305 East 72nd Street, it was 1977, and I was a 16-year-old girl who wanted to be a writer.
I'm an actor and a writer, that's how I think of myself. Sometimes my time is divided equally, sometimes less equally, but that's what I do.
I think most writers feel like they're on the outside looking in much of the time. All of us feel, to a certain extent, alienated from the stuff going on around us.
I think one of the things I was shocked about was how interested the world is in 'American Idol' and how people, writers, they write about 'Idol' all the time, and I guess I didn't expect that.
