Maggie O’Farrell

And the second child, I thought, okay, I know about this.

And I think, oh, wow, it's a

completely different human being.

That's a different person.

How does this work?

Yeah, I've got to relearn it.

So I think books are like that as well.

But I do think, I think the thing that I really wish someone had said to me when I was starting out writing is that you don't have to begin at the beginning.

You know, you don't have to set out your stall and establish your character and work it all out.

And then, you know, you start to sing.

You can just

Just give it a try.

I think there's huge comfort in word count and you can never, ever make a blank page into anything other than a blank page.

But bad writing you can make into good writing.

I think the vertigo I had before writing Hamlet was worse than for any other book that I've written, possibly.

And actually, I put off starting it for years, partly because I was really superstitious that I couldn't write it until my own son was past the age of 11.

But also that I just kept thinking, I'd think, I love this idea.

I love it.

I love it.

And then I would think, oh my God, who writes a novel about Shakespeare?