When I'm writing a book, you can't think about your audience. You're going to be in big trouble if you think about it. You're got to write from deep inside.
We're afraid of writing characters different from ourselves because we're afraid of getting it wrong. We're afraid of what the Internet might say.
I think fiction writers should work. If you have a job and are not living off advances or grants, you never have to make concessions in your writing, ever.
Other people have hang-ups about what's literary or genre or whatever, and that's sort of not my problem. You're supposed to write what you have to write, and you're supposed to keep moving.
I write lustily and humorously. It isn't calculated; it's the way I think. I've invented a writing style that expresses who I am.
I think the most important lesson isn't necessarily to try and write a different book every time, or to try and brand yourself and write one specific kind of book, but to write the kind of books you love to read.
I am not going to say that only people of color can write people of color, because that means only white people can write white people, and that's not OK.
It's much easier to conjure characters strictly from your imagination than to have to think about whether you're representing people in a truthful way.
As a writer, it's important to stay true to your story without giving a hoot about publishers, critics and readers. You should do your karma as an author the way you want to, and rest is up to God.
Maurice Sendak never - I remember he said something that was very striking because it's something I never thought about. I always loved his work, and he said, 'I don't really view myself as a children's book author. I just try and write about childhood as honestly as I can.'
My advice to authors would be to try to do something original rather than to try to anticipate what the market is looking for.
You can only really write about what you know about.
I think when you're writing anything you should never be thinking about hardcore genre fans.
I don't think you can write from a reactive place. I think you just write the thing you want to write about, and if other people are writing about it, that doesn't really come to bear on what you want to do.
