 Genre categories are irrelevant. I dislike them, but I do not have the casting vote. |
| If they had said my writing wasn't good enough, fair enough, that's an opinion. But to say it's too complex is to insult the intelligence of the so-called young. |
| I think of myself as a storyteller, and that is it. |
| I've been criticised for writing in too complex a manner for younger people. |
| People are always the start for me... animals, when I can get into their heads, gods, supernatural beings, immortals, the dead... these are all people to me. |
| As a child, my mother told me lots of fairy stories, many her own invention. She, too, tended to reverse the norm. |
| When I am fascinated by something, I like to play with it. |
| The other writer who had a very important early influence on me when I was about 17 was C.S. Lewis. |
| I like writing about women, weak and strong, pathetic and heroic. I like writing about men, ditto. And all the variants of men and women, beasts and demons. |
| No one is ever ordinary. |
| I also love Disney, and will defend doing so, because there's so much in those films and I don't care if it's stereotyped. |
| Writers tell stories better, because they've had more practice, but everyone has a book in them. Yes, that old cliche. |
| I never know where I am going, though. That is part of what makes it so wonderful. And after all, who does? |
| At an early school, when I was about 5, they asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Everyone said silly things, and I said I wanted to be an actress. So that was what I wanted to be, but what I was, of course, was a writer. |
| I like films, or some films, and would be intrigued to see my work on screen. |
| Pirates have always fascinated me. |
| Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure? |
| I'm writing what comes into my head, or through me, or from somewhere else, and it is the most extraordinary, exciting thing. I love it, and I'm very greedy, and I really enjoy it! |
| It's very selfish when I write. I'm not aware, ever, of writing for another person; I'm not even really aware of writing for myself. |
| I love writers all across the board, but one who influenced me very directly at the beginning was Mary Renault. |
