The reason is that they define how I have gone about my business. I have trusted to intuition. I did it at the beginning. I do it even now. I have no idea how things might turn out, where in my writing I might go next.
If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.
I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.
Whenever I have had to write fiction, I've always had to invent a character who roughly has my background.
I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time.
I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.
