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I'm definitely drawn to stories about outsiders. Feeling like that myself as a gay black man, I often seek to give a voice to those in the world who don't have one.
When you pick up a novel from the bed side table, you put down your own life at the same time and you become another person for the duration.
For humble individuals like myself, there is one poor comfort, which is this, viz. that gout, unlike any other disease, kills more rich men than poor, more wise men than simple.
A lot of times, I walk down the street and listen to people argue, and then I write a song about it.
It has always seemed to me that those who are without power, who have to create their own in a makeshifit way, know more about life than those who govern.
When I'm working on a book, I try to do eight pages a week. That seems like a good amount. Less than that, I'm not getting a nice momentum, and more than that, I'm probably putting out too much crap.
We Americans typically are more positive about our individual futures, which we have some control over, than we are the nation's or the world's, which we see largely through the media prism.
One thing I like about trying to write is that I can possibly write myself a role. Otherwise, you're at the mercy of whatever roles are out there that people are willing to give to you.
One book at a time... though I'm usually doing the research for others while I'm writing, but that sort of research is fairly desultory and I like to stick to the book being written - and writing a book concentrates the mind so the research is more productive.