Colm Tóibín / Features / Untitled Books

"I concentrate hard when I am working. I don’t start until I am ready. I scrap very little work. I wouldn’t begin, I think, unless I presumed that the result was going to be ok. I didn’t say good."

Colm Tóibín

Colm Tóibín is a multi-award-winning Irish novelist, short story writer and critic. He shares his working methods with us, including the benefits of fear and neurosis.

Where are you right now?
I am in Dublin, in a room below my study which should be a sitting room but it is too full and books and paper for that. It looks onto a busy street. A bus is going by.

Where do you write?
I have a place in Spain and I often go there when I am sure that I am ready and then I pounce on work.

How do you write?
I use ink and a pen and paper.

What keeps you writing?
Neurosis and fear, I suppose.

Who do you write for?
An audience. Readers. People out there.

Do you discuss your work with anyone?
I used to more, and I do still, but have become more confident and don't really need as much approval as I did.

How do you know if your work is good?
Oh. I concentrate hard when I am working. I don't start until I am ready. I scrap very little work. I wouldn't begin, I think, unless I presumed that the result was going to be ok. I didn't say good.

Do you have any unwritten characters in mind?
Quite a few. I hope not to have any more ideas until after Christmas.

Which book do you wish you'd written?
No, I don't feel that about other people's books.

What is your literary guilty pleasure?
No pleasure. I don't do pleasure.

Which writer made you want to write?
Hemingway. Kafka.

Who's the most exciting author writing today?
Alice Munro.

If you weren't writing you'd be...?
Teaching

What next?
A play, a new novel, a new book of stories, some lectures, a book of essays.

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The Empty Family, Colm Tóibín's latest collection of short stories, is published by Penguin Books
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