I Think I've Learnt That

When I Was Writing For Children, I Was Writing Genre Fiction. It Was Like Making A Good Chair. However Beautiful It Looked, It Needed Four Legs Of The Same Length, It Had To Be The Right Height And It Had To Be Comfortable.

I Don't Remember Deciding To Become A Writer. You Decide To Become A Dentist Or A Postman. For Me, Writing Is Like Being Gay. You Finally Admit That This Is Who You Are, You Come Out And Hope That No One Runs Away.

But I Don't Feel Sad About It. Because Mother Is Dead. And Because Mr. Shears Isn't Around Anymore. So I Would Be Feeling Sad About Something That Isn't Real And Doesn't Exist. And That Would Be Stupid.

With English Literature, If You Do A Bit Of Shonky Spelling, No One Dies, But If You're Half-way Through A Maths Calculation And You Stick In An Extra Zero, Everything Just Crashes Into The Ravine.

Sometimes We Get Sad About Things And We Don't Like To Tell Other People That We Are Sad About Them. We Like To Keep It A Secret. Or Sometimes, We Are Sad But We Really Don't Know Why We Are Sad, So We Say We Aren't Sad But We Really Are.