It's true, there is "Eileen Joyce Donovan on Writing" I Can't Imagine Doing Anything Else" in its entirety here and there is some excerpt below. Cool? Indeed it is.
~
As we start to wind-up, I want to pause first to take one more swing at your earlier response, specifically your comment on writing, "I feel like it's become such an important part of my life that I can't imagine doing anything else." I know that feeling, a lot of us do, and it's such a great sentiment, I'd be thrilled for you to take another beat on that. So, can you please further describe the feeling of not being able to imagine doing anything else?
I guess when I said I couldn't imagine doing anything else, I meant that I get such a thrill out of creating my books that I can't imagine not having that as part of my life. I remember during the isolation of COVID wondering what my non-writer friends could possibly be doing every day. I could disappear into whatever world my characters lived in, but they couldn't. No wonder there was such a feeling of desolation throughout the country! But aside from the isolation therapy writing provided, I truly enjoy my vicarious lives. I love seeing my characters face problems and solve them, confront adversaries and win or learn something from the confrontation, and generally live lives we can only imagine in another time period. It's fun, exciting, and a real adventure. Right now, I'm working on a contemporary novel, and I initially wondered if I would get the same pleasurable feelings from it, since it's present day life. But, I have to say, I'm having a lot of fun writing it. No research. No fact-checking. Just my imagination. We'll just have to wait and see how it all pans out in the end. But it's still something I look forward to every day when I wake up.