I know it sounds strange to say, but the very technologies that have made traveling easier for most people - GPS, automated ticket machines, online schedules and ticketing, boarding passes you can print out at home - have actually made things harder for me.
I was 17 when I decided to write stories as big as cathedrals, overflowing with the kind of memorable and audacious characters Walker Percy, Ernest Hemingway and Saul Bellow created.
My imagination was a great place to escape from all the anxiety and disapproval of my life... I had to live in my head... art was a way of making myself feel better.
I think one's relationship with one's vulnerability is a very delicate and precious relationship. Most people try to hide, disguise that vulnerability, and in doing that, you, I think, diminish a great source of power.
I never feel more alone than when I'm traveling. Alone and, to some extent, helpless. The world expects a certain level of competence and can be merciless when this expectation is unmet.
I do think that there is a profound reservoir of creativity and imagination in everyone I've ever met, and sometimes if someone is persistent and perversely obstinate enough to persevere, then they want to be helped. There is a way to help them.
The word 'novel' carries, for me, a weight as ominous, all-consuming and unforgiving as any Job encountered.
If I get the idea, and I get some clarity on how I feel about that idea, then I can safely assume I'll find the right words. I do have that confidence.
Dyslexia lends itself to original thinking, not rote formulas, because you can't do the formulas - you think up your own method based on intuition and instincts. Creativity is trial and error, trying to figure out a way to do something emotionally and intuitively.
