Philip Pullman ‘When you’re writing, you have to please yourself because there’s no one else there initially. But the book doesn’t fully exist until it’s been read. The reader is a very important part of the transaction – and people have to read things they want to read. I’m writing for me – I write for all the ‘me’s’ that have been. From the first me I can remember, the me who first got interested in stories and loved listening to them; to the me who was here at Oxford fifty years ago; to the me who was a school teacher, telling stories to the class. All of these. I’m writing for me. And I am lucky to have found such a wide audience and an audience which contains both adults and children is the best of all.’
[in an interview with the BBC on October 19, 2017]

[photo: AFP]
I do understand his remark about the book not really existing until it’s been read – I would clarify this further by saying, read by a stranger. Someone who hasn’t read early drafts or character sketches. Someone who hasn’t listened to your endless ‘what if’ scenarios or hasn’t seen you dance with joy when a knotty plot problem has been resolved.
Read the BBC article in full here.
See how these other authors write:-
Jilly Cooper
Bill Clegg
Emma Flint
And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
Why @PhilipPullman primarily writes for himself #amwriting http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2Yb via @SandraDanby