I'd say that about 82 percent of what I write is bad, but don't go by me; I'm as bad a judge as I am a writer. Look, if it were all good, you'd be paying twice as much for this book.
'Dead Air' is full of rants; it's a rant-based book. Yes, it's self-indulgence. I plead guilty; mea culpa.
When I write nonfiction, it's always absolutely true. There will be no moment in my nonfiction where I have made something up and have to apologize to the bullying hostess of a talk show.
I've written 16 children's books and five unpublished novels. Some of the latter were breathtakingly bad.
An autobiography should give the reader opportunity to point out the author's follies and misconceptions.
As a child I was an inveterate liar. As opposed to now, I am a Novelist.
In the worst memoirs, you can feel the author justifying himself - forgiving himself - in every paragraph. In the best memoirs, the author is tougher on him- or herself than his or her readers will ever be.
The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.
I never met an author who admitted that people did not buy his book because it was dull.
Readers are very, very savvy, and I don't want to insult them by making them think I'm too lazy to get it right.
I have to go with what comes naturally to me. Fantasy isn't my thing. I did enjoy the Oz books when I was growing up and certainly my grandson and I read Harry Potter together. You write what you can as well as you can.
Few books are more thrilling than certain confessions, but they must be honest, and the author must have something to confess.
I'm much nicer then all my characters, let's just put it that way.
