The Praxis author and Upstairs, Downstairs writer remembers a quote from Albert Camus about the doomed, mythological Greek king Sisyphus when she gets discouraged.
By Heart is a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite passages in literature.
It might be wise to take writing advice from Fay Weldon: Since 1967, the octogenarian has published more than 30 books. When I asked her how she's managed to stay so prolific, she responded with a little-known line from Albert Camus about Sisyphus, the mythic Greek king condemned by Zeus to roll a boulder endlessly up a hill and watch it crash down again.
Fay Weldon is winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (The Heart of the Country, 1989) and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (1979, Praxis). She won a Writers' Guild Award for the pilot episode of Upstairs, Downstairs, a BBC television progenitor of Downton Abbey. Her recent book, Habits of the House, is a novel of class boundaries and sexual scandal set in an English rural estate at the turn of the 20th century. Weldon has been made a Commander of the British Empire for her contributions to British culture.