Scottish - Writer | August 24, 1948 -
Writing fiction, I really just sit there and it just comes.
Alexander McCall Smith
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Writers obviously have to bear witness to the harsh face of the age.
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My Botswana books are positive, and I've never really sought to deny that. They are positive. They present a very positive picture of the country. And I think that that is perfectly defensible given that there is so much written about Africa which is entirely negative.
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Botswana is actually very peaceful. It's democratic. It never was in debt. They've been fortunate, they've had diamonds.
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Every single day, I get letters - very moving, overwhelming letters - testifying how much my books have meant to people in times of crisis in their lives, when they were very ill, say. If I ever doubted that writing could play an important part in people's lives, I don't doubt that now.
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I write four books a year. I'm very fortunate that I write quickly; around 3,500 words a day. Being strict about delineating my writing time and personal life, as well as keeping distractions at bay, is the only way I can accomplish this.
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I just focus on getting the first scene right, with a few lines about the overall plot, and then the book grows organically.
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I've always had a creative urge and I get immense satisfaction from creating something because it feels like I'm making sense of the world and imposing order on it.
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A very powerful theme in fiction is that of loss.
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There is this intimacy still in Botswana. It's a country of just under two million people, and there's this sense of connectedness, in that people tend to be related to one another.
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As a writer, you have to realize that people want to like the characters, so you have to be careful to keep them involved.
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With '44 Scotland Street' I found myself having to work out how a daily novel works, and it is completely different to a conventional novel.
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