You are - all your experience just kind of accumulates, and the novel takes a richness of its own simply because it has the weight of all those years that one's put into it.
Donna TarttThe trouble is when people read about authors, they don't feel compelled to read the authors' work.
Donna TarttClearly something had gone wrong, badly, only I wasn't quite sure whatโapart from knowing that I was responsible somehow, in the generalized miasma of shame and unworthiness and being-a-burden that never quite left me.
Donna TarttI've written only two novels, but they're both long ones, and they each took a decade to write.
Donna TarttThe job of the novelist is to invent: to embroider, to color, to embellish, to entertain, to make things up. The art of what I do lies not in research or even recollection but primarily in invention.
Donna TarttI think it's especially important for an editor to say what he's enjoying. For a novelist to be told, midstream, what he's doing right can actually influence the unwritten parts of a novel in a positive way - praise helps a writer know what's good about what he's written, what's interesting and exciting, and what to work for in writing the conclusion.
Donna Tartt