All serious writing starts from within

This is a quotation from an article I just read on The Times Literary Supplement, on a talk given by Richard Ford yesterday.

All serious writing starts from within.

This is contained within the concluding paragraph:

Ford concluded that “to define and detail and to push and extend what can be said is the essential genius in the great novel’s claim to intelligence”. But “nothing is smarter” than revealing your basic artistic impulse – displaying what you think of as important and interesting enough to share with the reader. “Nothing a novel does is as profound as taking a risk on its own premiss . . . . All serious writing starts from within.”

Who’s Richard Ford, I wondered and looked him up. Oh, only the guy who wrote Canada and The Sportswriter (among other novels) — a man a recent writing teacher mentioned. I remember writing down these novels during my furious note-taking.