A Quote by H. L. Mencken
Writing books is certainly a most unpleasant occupation. It is lonesome, unsanitary, and maddening. Many authors go crazy.
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Picture books, while less in word count, are certainly not less important. There are unbelievably skillful authors writing in this vein. Authors like Jane O'Connor and Jon Scieszka.
One of the maddening ironies of writing books is that it leaves so little time for reading others'. My bedside is piled with books, but it's duty reading: books for book research, books for review. The ones I pine for are off on a shelf downstairs.
They're such different things [Townies and Lonesome Dove]. I certainly love them both. Certainly Lonesome Dove would be way hard now, because, I mean, back then I wasn't married.
There are plenty of paths to becoming a writer, but I think the most reliable ones involve total commitment: writing for magazines and newspapers, teaching writing, editing books, representing authors.
Teachers and librarians can be the most effective advocates for diversifying children's and young adult books. When I speak to publishers, they're going to expect me to say that I would love to see more books by Native American authors and African-American authors and Arab-American authors. But when a teacher or librarian says this to publishers, it can have a profound effect.
I receive a lot of letters like yours. Most go on in length, describing all sorts of maddening situations and communications in bewildered detail, but in each there is the same question at its core: Can I convince the person about whom I am crazy to be crazy about me? The short answer is no. The long answer is no.
In terms of the idea of long-term occupation - I have been reading a little bit more about this period - and you can see in that occupation are many lessons for the current occupation of Iraq. So we have these connections that go way back that people aren't aware of.
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.
Writing, and especially writing a novel, where you get to sit in a room by yourself with either a pen and a paper or a computer for a couple of years, is a very solitary occupation. You can read sales figures - a hundred thousand books sold, half a million books sold - but they are just numbers.
Most of the authors I liked were dead, so it didn't seem like a safe occupation.
I find that most books that I don't like are those in which the authors have indulged themselves. I can almost sense when they're writing something for themselves.
If the rewards to authors go down, simple economics says there will be fewer authors. It's not that people won't burn with the passion to write. The number of people wanting to be novelists is probably not going to decline - but certainly the number of people who are going to be able to make a living as authors is going to dramatically decrease.
I am drawn to writing books about magic and the supernatural because those are the types of books I like to read. I've written many short stories with realistic settings, and I certainly wouldn't rule out realistic novels in the future!
In the history of literature there are many great enduring works which were not published in the lifetimes of the authors. If the authors had not achieved self-affirmation while writing, how could they have continued to write?
I have an agent, John Brockman, who is an agent to many academic authors like Dan Gilbert and Steven Pinker, and he's very good at conning academics into writing books. He pulled this trick on me.
The National Book Festival is a great way for families and friends to share the creative works of some of America's most-loved authors, .. Readers of all ages can listen to favorite writers speaking about their books, have books autographed, meet many storybook characters and enjoy a day on the National Mall.
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