Deborah Levy Beats Writers' Block by… Swimming | Literary Hub

Who do you most wish would read your book?

I don't think I could write a book with this question in my mind. Reason is, I would be slyly trying to slip things in that I imagine might please my heroine and punish a bully. That would really be an impossible way to write, don't you think? Mind you, I would have loved Lee Miller and Leonora Carrington to have read my books.

Actually, my fantasy is that we are all three of us just lazing around, lying on the floor, reading, drawing, writing. Lee would be taking photographs. There would be a bottle of champagne chilling in the fridge. Perhaps Anais Nin would turn up for a glass and relay her latest sexual adventures. After a while, she too would laze around and write up her journals. I like this atmosphere, but it's not the same as writing books-which requires solitude and stamina and more solitude.