Given that external reality is a fiction, the writer's role is almost superfluous. He does not need to invent the fiction because it is already there.
It's not my brain that's writing the book, it's these hands of mine.
The one thing a writer has to have is a pencil and some paper. That's enough, so long as she knows that she and she alone is in charge of that pencil, and responsible, she and she alone, for what it writes on that paper.
It's the prerogative of the writer to rewrite the world into one he would like to exist.
The creative writer uses his life as well as being its victim; he can control, in his work, the self-presentation that in actuality is at the mercy of a thousand accidents.
I think an artist, in my definition of that word, would not be someone who takes sides with the emperor against his powerless subjects. That's different from prescribing a way in which a writer should write.
It's hard, because when you talk about process or your characters ruling your narrative, it sounds like you have no control, but obviously you're ultimately the author, so you do have control.
A writer is a tool of the language rather than the other way around.
