Colm Tóibín

It wasn't until I was in my 50s that I got the hang of how to start a story.

I was always starting stories with too much information, too much effort.

You could see the strain.

It's almost like writing a poem where you have to let the image flow.

You have to get something slow, but at the same time, it has to do some work.

And that balance then is required.

I think often if you think of some situation that's really ironic,

or ambiguous, you can get a story from it in the way that it won't fit into a novel.

So I think the difference is almost complete between story and novel.

And these stories have been written over the last 10 years.

I have to say, when the book was coming out, I dropped a few stories, just I didn't think they were good enough.

And this meant that a few stories I had drafts of or half done, I really got going.

It was good.

It gave me energy.

So last year, I finished three of them.

Three of them I just had there.

And that was quite exciting because it was the publication of the book.

You know, people think about writers being dreamy or, oh, inspiration has to come or the moon has to change or something.

But actually it was just that I had a book coming out and I was going to be too short and I needed to put three more stories into it.

I need to get up early and just do those.