Something Donald Antrim Said Three Years Ago

You know when you read something by some other writer and it feels like they're talking about you and your experience? Both of the following Donald Antrim thoughts (from an ancient New Yorker Online piece) had that effect on me when I read them:

The sources of things tend to be hidden in the novels. I think that for me they've had a kind of autobiographical quality, but not in the usual sense—in their more encrypted, codified language.

I think that when I started writing my first novel I wrote it the way I wrote it because it was more fun. It was a way for me to enjoy what I was doing, and this came after some years in which I hadn't really enjoyed very much. I wasn't enjoying much of my life, and I wasn't enjoying writing, and I wasn't very happy with it all, and I started the first novel, and it felt fun. It felt like I had a different set of rules and possibilities. And I felt that if I weren't having fun then there really wouldn't be much reason to be doing this at all.

Then again, these can be summed up:

I. When writing a novel find a way to employ the personal ingredient.
II. When writing a novel have more fun.