In The End, Fiction Is The Craft

The Idea Of Legitimacy Is Something I Suppose I Deal With In My Fiction, And In Part It's Probably A Response To My Upbringing. When I Was Growing Up I Was The Middle Child, Pathologically Shy, In A Family With A Very Loud And Opinionated Older Brother, And I Felt As If I Never Had The Right To Speak. As A Result, I Simply Didn't Speak Very Much.

When I Meet People I Try To Make A Joke Out Of My Occupation, Explaining That What I Do All Day Is Sit Alone In A Darkened Room, Flicking Through Some Pages, Jumping On A Treadmill Now And Then. I Keep My Serious Work As A Writer Private, But That Doesn't Mean It's Not Serious Work - Quite The Opposite.

I'm Kind Of A Control Freak. But There Are Others Like Me.

At Least In My Case, A Very Simple, Regular, Happy Life Makes For Better Writing.

It's Not Easy To Make Friends When You're An Adult Writer Outside Of Academia, Especially When You Work Alone In A Little Room For Twelve Hours A Day, And So I Wrote Toward What I Most Longed For.