Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I'm one of the world's great rewriters.
I think the crucial thing in the writing career is to find what you want to do and how you fit in. What somebody else does is of no concern whatever except as an interesting variation.
I was brought up in the great tradition of the late nineteenth century: that a writer never complains, never explains and never disdains.
