I discovered that writing was very nice indeed when I was very young, and I never changed. I don't think my style has changed very much at all - though I hope what I say is a bit more interesting. It's about getting to know a character and loving them, I think.
Interpretation
Writing is a cherished activity that remains constant throughout one's life and fosters a deep connection with characters.
This quote from Jane Gardam reflects a lifelong passion for writing that remains unchanged from childhood despite hopes of improvement in depth and interest. It emphasizes the importance of developing a relationship with the characters created, suggesting that true engagement in writing occurs when one both knows and loves the characters they bring to life.
In practice
This quote could be shared in a writing workshop to inspire young authors.
Stories of all lengths and depths come from different parts of the cave. For a novel, you must lay in mental, physical and spiritual provision as for a siege or for a time of hectic explosions, while a short story is, or can be, a steady, timed flame like the lighting of a blow lamp on a building site full of dry tinder.
I started to write as a child as soon as I could read, or even before, when my mother read me Beatrix Potter at bedtime. Writing seemed to me to be the only sensible way to live and be happy.
I was nearly 40 when I started. I had no fear that I wasn't going to write. I knew it was just delayed. Then, my goodness, I never stopped.
In modern novels, there is no one I want to copy. My style 'is a poor thing, but it is my own.'
A surprising proportion of mathematicians are accomplished musicians. Is it because music and mathematics share patterns that are beautiful?
All too often, when creative people pick out someone else's creative work as an inspiration, what they end up with is very, very far from the original.
Architecture is a hazardous mixture of omnipotence and impotence. It is by definition a c h a o t i c a d v e n t u r e... In other words, the utopian enterprise.
What I do is unusual: chordal movements that have never been used before, changing keys and modalities mid-song.
A portrait photographer depends upon another person to complete his picture. The subject imagined, which in a sense is me, must be discovered in someone else willing to take part in a fiction he cannot possibly know about.
The simplicity of photography lies in the fact that it is very easy to make a picture. The staggering complexity of it lies in the fact that a thousand other pictures of the same subject would have been equally easy.
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