The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.
But I now think what I was doing, in a completely unconscious way, was getting off the turf where my husband and I might be rivals. We were both working in fiction… so I look back and I see that I consciously vacated the contested ground.
Writing a novel is a terrible experience, during which the hair often falls out and the teeth decay.
I used to think it was hard to write, and I still find the process more or less unpleasant, but if I know what I’m doing it rattles along, then the rewrite whips it into shape rather quickly.
You can trust a Neil Simon script. Every dot. Every dash; that pause means something. He takes all the jokes out, practically.
It’s not surprising to see in my own work, looking back, and in the work of some of my peers, an attention to family. It’s nice to write a book that does tend toward significance and meaning, and where else are you sure of finding it?
In France, for instance, one magazine writer was convinced that On The Road had been a huge influence on Lost Souls and was crushed to learn that I hadn’t read the one until after I’d written the other.
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