Tom Robbins on the Writing Process and Why His Reputation Isn't Important to Him

The problem [with focusing on one's] reputation is that it's bound up with egoism ... The reason so many writers are depressed and dismal is that they tend to have large, stiff egos. Look at Saul Bellow. Now, he has a great reputation. He's rich and famous, he's won a Nobel Prize, critics everywhere wash his feet with their slobber. But Saul Bellow is one miserable old hound dog.

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... [If you] ask me to describe the writing process, all I can think to say is that it's like a cross between flying to the moon and taking a shower in a motel.

---Author Tom Robbins, from At the Field's End: Interviews With 22 Pacific Northwest Writers,by Nicholas O'Connell, pp. 282 and 284.