I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.
If you write a novel alone you sit and you weave a little narrative. And it's O.K., but it's of no account.
I had no student friends to talk to about literature. My tutor was a really nice man, very charming - but he had no literary judgment.
Whenever I have had to write fiction, I've always had to invent a character who roughly has my background.
I profoundly feel that people are letting you down all the time.
I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.
