The Trick Is Not Becoming A Writer.

I Never Send A Story Off Until I Have Read It Aloud To At Least Two Or Three People. Because When I Read - And I Don't Need Their Criticism, What I Need Is My Own - When I Read It Aloud, There Is A Flow, There Is A Poetry To It.

What I Try To Write About Are The Darkest Things In The Soul, The Mortal Dreads... The Closer I Get To The Burning Core Of My Being, The Things Which Are Most Painful To Me, The Better Is My Work.

People On The Outside Think There's Something Magical About Writing, That You Go Up In The Attic At Midnight And Cast The Bones And Come Down In The Morning With A Story, But It Isn't Like That. You Sit In Back Of The Typewriter And You Work, And That's All There Is To It.

The Act Of Writing Means You Wish To Communicate. Whether You're Writing A Memoir For Yourself You Put In A Drawer, Or You Write A Poem And You Send It To A Little Magazine, Or You Write For Publication, It Always Means - The Form Follows Function.

Don't Start An Argument With Somebody Who Has A Microphone When You Don't. They'll Make You Look Like Chopped Liver.