I Take Real People And Put Them

Salinger Is Such A Terrific Writer; He Did So Many Great Things. He Is One Of Those Writers That I Still Reread, Simply Because He Makes Me See The Possibilities And Makes Me Feel Like Writing. There Are Certain Writers Who Put You In The Mood To Write. In The Way A Whiff Of A Cigar Will Bring Back Memories Of A Ballgame On A Saturday Afternoon, Reading Salinger Makes Me Want To Get To The Typewriter.

I Write Very Tightly, And My Big Fear Is Boring People. I Want Them To Read Quickly, Stopped In Their Tracks. I Resist Indulging Myself.

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.

When I Write, I Never Think Of Segments As Chapters; I Think Of Them As Scenes. I Always Visualize Them In My Mind. Then I Try To Get The Scene Down On Paper As Closely As I Can. That's The One Thing That Readers Don't See - What You Have In Your Mind. The Reader Can Only See What You Get On The Page.

I Use A Lot Of Similes And Metaphors When I Work, Simply Because It's My Best Way Of Describing A Building Or A Scene. I'm Terrible At Describing Landscapes - Trees, Buildings. The Inanimate Things Don't Interest Me: I Always Think, "oh, No, Here Comes Another Building I Have To Describe." So I Usually Use A Simile Or Metaphor.