A Novel Is Written Not To Be

There Is Something Wonderful About A Death, How Everything Shuts Down, And All The Ways You Thought You Were Vital Are Not Even Vaguely Important. Your Husband Can Feed The Kids, He Can Work The New Oven, He Can Find The Sausages In The Fridge, After All. And His Important Meeting Was Not Important, Not In The Slightest.

I Find Being Irish Quite A Wearing Thing. It Takes So Much Work Because It Is A Social Construction. People Think You Are Going To Be This, This, And This.

Try To Be Accurate About Stuff.

You Write A Book And You Finish The Book. That's Your Job Done, Right? You Win The Booker And You Have A Whole New Job. You Have To Be The Thing, Right? So Instead Of Writing The Story, You Somehow Are The Story. And That I Found That Sort Of Terrible.

A Novel Is Written Not To Be Judged, But Experienced.