R. A. Salvatore

I don't know how many bestsellers I've got, or half the awards I've won, and I don't really care. I'm just having fun, doing something I love and getting paid for it. How cool is that?

Writing a book for me, I expect, is very similar to the experience of reading the book for my readers.

Definitely they write themselves. It's an amazing experience. It's like the characters have come alive and are sitting on my shoulder talking to me, telling me their tales.

I didn't and don't go to Internet for any business purposes. The book sales for me by this point are way beyond any influence I might have, positively, or others might have, negatively.

That's the whole point of writing to me - I put my characters under incredible duress, and from that comes their truth. In a way, I'm using them to try to find my own answers in life.

I loved to read and to write, but then something happened. As I made my way through school, I kept getting handed books to read that didn't excite me and didn't even remotely connect to the realities of my life.

This is my spiritual journey through life, my way of making sense of the world. I don't need permission from anyone or accolades from anyone; it is completely internal.

I won't hold any illusions of changing the world or any such nonsense. But maybe, just maybe, I'm helping someone else change his or her life a little bit for the better, even if it just means giving someone a magical place in which to hide.

On a more practical level, anyone out there who wants to be a writer should clearly recognize that this is a brutal business, where even incredibly talented people sometimes never make a living. If you want to chase such a dream, please have a Plan B in place.

Writing can be a tough gig. Whenever you do something in which you put yourself out there - if that becomes the focus of your life, you miss the point of living. You've really got to get the grounding of family and the things that are important in your life and make that your focus.

I do that mostly because I believe that the fantasy business is in terrible trouble right now, for several reasons, not the least of which being the almost Democrat vs. Republican mentality of readers on the Internet.

I think I'm a pretty well-kept secret.