It’s not calculated at all. It never has been. One of the things I had to learn as a writer was to trust the act of writing. To put myself in the position of writing to find out what I was writing… The inventions of the book come as discoveries. At a certain point, of course, you figure out what your premises are and what you’re doing. But certainly, with the beginnings of the work, you really don’t know what’s going to happen…
It’s not a terribly rational way to work. It’s hard to explain. I have found one explanation that seems to satisfy people. I tell them it’s like driving a car at night: you never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
The Art of Fiction #94 [The Paris Review #101, Winter 1986]
Use the link below to read a 2015 article about North American novelist EL DOCTOROW (1931–2015):
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/23/el-doctorow-great-american-novelist
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The Write Advice 093: BARRY HANNAH
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