DS

When I sign books for people sometimes they say, “Oh, well how do I get my book published?” And I’m like, “Well, do you write every day?” And they’ll say, “Well, I try to” or “no.” And I want to say, “Well then you don’t have any hope.” You know? Or I meet people who say, “Well, I’m going to go to graduate school for writing.” And it’s like, “Well why would you? You’re just wasting your money.” If you don’t write every day then you’re just wasting your money. Graduate school isn’t going to teach you to write every day. That’s something that has to come from inside you. And you either do it or you don’t. And if you don’t then it just seems particularly—there’s a big difference between writing and wanting to write. A huge difference. But it’s like that for any kind of art, really.But I never had to force myself to do it [writing]. And so when I quit drinking and smoking, the desire to write and the discipline was still there. I mean it was hard. Like when I quit smoking I’d have to say, “Okay, I sat at my computer for 12 minutes today.” And then, “Tomorrow I’ll sit at my computer for 14 minutes.” You know? You had to build it back up. I tried rolling paper up into these little tubes, sucking on these little tubes—the house was littered with them at one point. But I didn’t do that for very long. I only did it for a couple of weeks.