I spent most of my adult life sitting alone in my room, writing books.
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I hit a wall. For ten years, I focused a lot of my energy on poetry, and then I realized that I had written all of myself, and I ran out of thoughts. It's a dark time for me. I felt like my career as a writer was over.
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I can't imagine anyone who could be a writer and not be a voracious reader when he was younger. The true reader understands that the book is a world that leads to itself—and that world is richer and more interesting than anything we've been to before. I think that's what makes young men and women writers – you find the joy of living in books. You haven't lived long enough to write about yet, but the time comes when you realize that is what you were born to do.
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I've always written by hand. Most of the time with a pen, but sometimes with a pencil – especially when revising. If I could write directly on a typewriter or computer, then I would do that. But the keyboard always scares me. When my fingers are in that position, I will never be able to think clearly. The pen is a much more basic tool, you feel the words coming out of your body, and then you carve those words into the page. For me, writing has always had that tactile quality. It's a physical experience.
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Each book is a new one. I've never written before, and when I do, I'll have to teach myself how to write, and the fact that I've written a few books in the past doesn't play a role in that. I've always felt like a beginner, and I've been confronted with the same difficulties, the same obstacles, the same despair. As a writer, you've made so many mistakes, changed so many bad sentences and ideas, and discarded so many useless pages that you'll eventually know how stupid you are. It's a lowly profession.
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Typing allowed me to experience the book in a new way, to immerse myself in the narrative flow and feel how it works as a whole. I call this process "reading with my fingers", and it's amazing how many mistakes your fingers make that your eyes never notice. Repeat. Clumsy structure. Broken rhythms. Never fails. Once I thought I was done with the book, I started typing it all over again, and I realized that there was more work to be done.
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I think I think of the notebook as a house of words, a secret place for reflection and self-examination. I'm interested not only in the result of writing, but also in the process, in the act of putting words on the page.
