Writing is 'no fun', says Toíbín
Alison Flood writing in the guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 March 2009

No fun: Colm Tóibín. Photograph: Murdo Macleod

The novelist Colm Toíbín has claimed that the only aspect of the writing life that gives him any pleasure is getting paid. In an interview with fellow novelist MJ Hyland, the Irish author said he took no enjoyment from writing his books – or from reading good reviews – and that the best thing about being a writer was financial success.

"Oh there's no pleasure. Except that I don't have to work for anyone who bullies me," he said in response to Hyland's question about how writing makes him feel. "I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway and I would disapprove of it."

Toíbín said he hadn't enjoyed writing any of his books, from his debut The South to his two Booker-shortlisted novels The Blackwater Lightship and The Master. "After a while [writing is] not really difficult, but it's never fun or anything. With a few of the books, especially The Heather Blazing and The Master and the new novel Brooklyn, there has been a real problem in not having a sort of breakdown as I worked on a particular passage," he said. "I don't want to go on about this too much, but there is a passage in each of those books which I found almost impossible to write and then harder and harder to re-write. I hope never to have to look at those passages again.

The full piece at the Guardian online.