An astonishing career

Whenever I pat myself on the back for being so prolific over so many years of my career, I remember JCO and feel like a damn lazy bum.

clipped from seattlepi.nwsource.com Joyce Carol Oates talks about drawing upon her family for her 36th novel By ANDREA HOAG SPECIAL TO THE P-I Oates has explored every form of love during the course of her career, and she admits to being a bit surprised that "The Gravedigger's Daughter" is her 36th novel. "It does seem amazing, and maybe because it seems to me that I work very slowly. And even when I'm doing book reviews ... I just write everything over and over. I'm very slow, but I work many hours a day ... all day long basically. And then I'm thinking about it at night. I'm almost embarrassed to say how long it takes me to write a review for the New York Review of Books. ... But I do a lot of background reading, and I take far too many notes. ... It just takes so much preparation that I think most people just wouldn't believe it, and they would wonder if it's worth it.