Well, the joy [of writing] is infrequent. Sometimes one just hits those easy stretches, moments of extended felicity when every sentence tells you how to write the next one. In the course of a single novel, maybe it happens, if I’m lucky, a dozen times in two years. And then the rest of the time –– for me, it would be ridiculous to call it joy. But it would be wrong and self-dramatizing to call it agony. More like a brute determination to push on, but often against the grain, something that makes me not want to not do. I was reading a book about consciousness the other day, and the very first sentence said something like ‘My mind appears to have a mind of its own.' Which I rather liked. Because every time I try to get on with my work, my mind wanders –– I’m always standing up and fleeing from it, as though it’s almost too much. Or do I mean too little? I don’t even think I know.
Interview [Vanity Fair, April 2005]
Use the link below to visit the website of British writer IAN McEWAN:
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