Meg Wolitzer
My being a writer and playing Scrabble are connected. If I have a good writing day, I'll take a break and play online Scrabble. My favorite word as a child was 'carrion,' before I knew what it meant. I later created crossword puzzles, which was a lot about puns, and how words would create these strange, strange things.
In 'The Interestings' I wanted to write about what happens to talent over time. In some people talent blooms, in others it falls away.
If you've written a powerful book about a woman and your publisher then puts a 'feminine' image on the cover, it 'types' the book.
Good writing is good writing, and I'm so happy when I read it.
When I wrote 'The Interestings,' I wanted to let time unspool, to give the book the feeling of time passing. I had to allow myself the freedom to move back and forth in time freely, and to trust that readers would accept this.
I think everyone is always measuring themselves against other people to a certain degree; it happens automatically, and it's hard not to be this way at least some of the time.
Both my mother and I have close groups of friends that include other writers, and these friendships are very important to us.
I've always been drawn to writing for young readers. The books that I read growing up remain in my mind very strongly.
'Charlotte's Web,' which I read sitting on my mother's lap, was the most emotional experience: that was when I made the leap from seeing how to untangle words to realizing how books both contain and convey strong feelings.
I really love Scrabble. I played it with my mother growing up. We took it everywhere with us. We didn't know then about the two letter words. Who knew that AA, or more controversially, ZA, or QI were words? We were a games family generally.
I really like to entertain myself in various ways when I'm writing.
I'm not particularly good at doodling. I'll doodle the same face over and over again.
I think listening to music from your youth is as powerful as a scent passed beneath your nose.
I love guacamole and think about it a lot when I'm supposed to be thinking about language.
These are old issues. Female power, misogyny, the treatment of women, how you make meaning in the world. And these are all issues that I've been thinking about and writing about for a very long time.
I believe that sometimes, when we talk about books, we're talking about the big picture - how they're relevant.
I am a novelist through and through.
It's gratifying to be taken seriously, always.
Novels can be a snapshot of a moment in time, or several moments in time, and as a reader, that's what I really like, and as a writer, it's what I'm drawn to also.
When you're writing, it's so absorbing. It's like a drop cloth goes over you, and the world outside falls away, but you do have a miniature version of the world, your own world, that you actually have some control over. I love to work.
We all would love the idea of people getting what's coming to them in books and in life, but sometimes the trajectory is a little more complicated than that.
I sometimes feel as if ideas for a novel kind of pop up like numbers in a bingo tumbler, and then they're ready to go.
I'm really interested in women of different generations... I think there is no one female experience.
When I was in junior high school, friends and I were in a consciousness-raising group, a term that now seems quaint like a butter churn, but it was very powerful. It was a really wonderful experience.
People say, write what you know, but it's really, write about what obsesses you. Write about what you're thinking about all the time.
It's hard for me to feel bad when I'm writing well.
As a novelist, I feel lucky that I can traffic in nuance. I'm more interested in looking at how things change over time, at how people try and sometimes fail to make meaning out of their lives.
I do want to say the process of writing a novel is riddled with self-doubt and self-loathing.
I don't write autobiographically.
When you have a book out, it's like a period of protracted or concentrated megalomania, and it's really not normal or good for you or any of that.
I think a lot of the dull parts of first drafts come from a kind of over-managing, intrusive writer who wants to direct traffic. The idea of taking out the parts that the reader could infer is very liberating, and it's weirdly part of radicalizing your work: it allows you to go to new places fast.
'Pleasure' is a word I think about a lot, as opposed to 'entertainment.' They are very, very different.
We all want to write the kind of book that we want to read. If you put in the things that you are thinking about and create characters who feel like they could live - at least for me, that's the way I want to write.
Some people are uncomfortable saying what they feel.
I think my writing changed when I put 'the' in front of my titles. It had more command.
Being a teacher at a restaurant in the town where you lived was a little like being a TV star.Collection: Teacher
We are all here, on this earth for only one go around. And everyone thinks their purpose is to just find their passion. But perhaps our purpose is to find what other people need.Collection: Passion
And I also know that pain can seem like an endless ribbon. You pull it and you pull it. You keep gathering it toward you, and as it collects, you really can't believe that there's something else at the end of it. Something that isn't just more pain. But there's always something else at the end; something at least a little different. You never know what that thing will be, but it's there.Collection: Pain
The child who was happy with herself meant the parents had won the jackpot.Collection: Children
While it's true that some writers, when taking on love and war, find the task too big, or only succeed in one but not the other, Mengestu tracks both themes with authority and feeling.Collection: War
You stayed around your children as long as you could, inhaling the ambient gold shavings of their childhood, and at the last minute you tried to see them off into life and hoped that the little piece of time you’d given them was enough to prevent them from one day feeling lonely and afraid and hopeless. You wouldn’t know the outcome for a long time.Collection: Lonely
I always thought it was the saddest and most devastating ending. How you could have these enormous dreams that never get met. How without knowing it you could just make yourself smaller over time. I don't want that to happen to me.Collection: Life
You had only one chance for a signature in life, but most people left no impression.Collection: People
The only option for a creative person was constant motion—a lifetime of busy whirligigging in a generally forward direction, until you couldn’t do it any longer.Collection: Creative
And specialness - everyone wants it. But Jesus, is it the most essential thing there is? Most people aren't talented. So what are they supposed to do - kill themselves?Collection: Jesus
When I wrote The Interestings, I wanted to let time unspool, to give the book the feeling of time passing. I had to allow myself the freedom to move back and forth in time freely, and to trust that readers would accept this.Collection: Moving
Twitter," said Manny, waving his hand. "You know what that is? Termites with microphones.Collection: Hands
Just the act of sleeping beside someone you liked to be with. Maybe that was love.Collection: Sleep
The generation that had information, but no context. Butter, but no bread. Craving, but no longing.Collection: Generations
Everybody has a theme. You talk to somebody awhile, and you realize they have one particular thing that rules them. The best you can do is a variation on the theme, but that's about it.Collection: Motivation