Any kind of crisis can be good. It wakes you up.
I've always been a bit of a pessimist in regard to mankind.
Probably because I personally knew at least six or seven people in Ross County who died from overdoses in the last three years. The heroin epidemic is just too aggravating and sad and unsettling for even someone like me to live with and think about for the time it would take to write a book dealing with it.
I'm trying to break myself of that habit [of not writing out a first draft ] because I'm working on a couple novels and I know if I tried to write those books the way I wrote the stories it would take me years to finish.
When I started graduate school we did this publishing class where we learned about submitting and read interviews with editors from different magazines. A lot of them said they got so many submissions that unless the first page stuck out or the first paragraph or even the first sentence they'll probably send it back. So part of my idea was that if I have a really good first sentence maybe they'll read on a bit further. At least half, maybe more of the stories in Knockemstiff started with the first sentence; I got it down then went from there.
I had this bad habit of not writing out a first draft and going back. For me it was the first sentence, then the second sentence, and I might be several weeks on the first page instead of writing a draft and trying to figure it out from there.
When I first started out, I was trying to write stories about nurses and lawyers and a lot of people I didn't know anything about, and they just weren't working.
The abstract, unreal freedom of the liberal intellect was really nothing more than childish disobedience, amplified into anarchy.
The task is to transform society; only the people can do that - not heroes, not celebrities, not stars.
I thought there should in truth be heavy damages for malpractice on human souls.
Every child's birthright is a happy home.