Because I've spent most of my life with such a beautiful, talented, challenging female, I feel I've gained - and am still gaining - a great deal of knowledge about the feminine mystique and about personal relationships - knowledge which is so important to a writer.
[Ernest ]Hemingway always said, "Write about what you know." I think you can do that, and if you want to write about what you don't know, you can. It just takes a lot more work.
An editor is a person who knows more about writing than writers do but who has escaped the terrible desire to write.
I knew nothing about the technique of story writing, and now, after eighteen years of writing, I still know nothing about the technique, although with the publication of my new novel, Tarzan and the Lost Empire, there are 31 books on my list.
I entered the literary world, really, from outside. My entire background has been in sciences; I was a biology major in college, then went to medical school. I've never had any formal training in writing. So what I know about writing, I know from my own instincts, and whatever the narrative voice is in my own head.
I'm here because of what I write. Obviously, I must know something.
I never write. Never! I do not even remember if I can write.
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
I don't know the nuts and bolts of writing. I studied medicine. I was a pre-med nerd. So everything I learned, I know about writing is very instinctive.
As a journalist for 35 years, and now author for 20, I've learned that there's always more.
Because there is no better tool for writing than experience. It has very little to do with grammar and everything to do with knowing.
My education and background thoroughly inform my writing.
A lot of people have an opinion on scripts, but they aren't equipped to diagnose what the problems are. You realize that scriptwriting is such a specialist subject, but because it's so common, everyone thinks that they can talk about that. I think it's something that writers only know, that they can see.
Sometimes people are so close to the material, they miss an important cross-reference. You can't drop this line because half an hour later, it affects that line. And the writer is the person who knows that immediately.
