As A Writer, You Owe It To

If You Are Without Impulses, You Are, To A Degree, Without Joy..." 469

History Is Always Changing Behind Us, And The Past Changes A Little Every Time We Retell It.

People Who Wrote Literary Novels About The Past Probably Didn't Want Them Pegged As Historical Fiction. Certainly That Was True In England.

Busyness, I Feel Increasingly, Is The Writer's Curse And Downfall. You Read Too Much And Write Too Readily, You Become Cut Off From Your Inner Life, From The Flow Of Your Own Thoughts, And Turned Far Too Much Towards The Outside World.

Like Every Writer, I'm Drawn By Unlikely Juxtapositions, Precisely-dated And Once-only Collisions Between People From Different Worlds.