Basically for me a story can be anything. Anything you tell me, anything I read in the newspaper, in any mode. I don't have any restrictions.
T.C. BoyleI'm pretty hardcore. I stick exactly to what I'm doing. So I write a novel in one period, and then I'll write stories in another period. I only work on one thing at once, because I'm afraid that I wouldn't finish what I'd started.
T.C. BoyleWe live in a cluttered culture, a culture of information in which even our computers can't tell us what's worth knowing and what is merely cultural scrap. In such a society, we don't have the experience of contemplative space, of the time or mood to engage a book of poetry or even read a novel. Who can achieve the unconscious-conscious state of the reader when everything is stimulation, everything is movement and information?
T.C. BoyleI'm a product of state schools. I had a working-class family. We had no books. I was the first to go to college. But I didn't really think about it, or about making money. I was just going to be an artist, and I've been fortunate. I've never had to work for anybody nor have I had to write for money. Maybe that's another reason that I've been able to be productive. I haven't had to use my writing to make a living.
T.C. BoyleI have an idea and a first line -- and that suggests the rest of it. I have little concept of what Iโm going to say, or where itโs going. I have some idea of how long itโs going to be -- but not what will happen or what the themes will be. Thatโs the intrigue of doing it -- itโs a process of discovery. You get to discover what youโre going to say and what itโs going to mean.
T.C. Boyle