Author Michael Chabon says discipline is key

By Belinda Goldsmith

SYDNEY, May 21 (Reuters Life!) - American author Michael Chabon has won a Pulitzer Prize but he's not taking it for granted, saying discipline and hard work are the only ways to succeed as a novelist.

Chabon's third novel "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2001 while his most recent work, "The Yiddish Policemen's Union," which is just being released in paperback, won a Nebula Award.

Chabon, 44, spoke to Reuters about writing and families:

Q: Did you always want to write?

A: "When I was still pretty young, 11 or 12, I started writing primarily for school and I took to it. I found it to be pleasurable and writing fiction, writing stories like the kind I liked to read, made me feel connected to the work and the authors and, although I did not know it at the time, to the whole tradition that I was to become a part of."

Q: Is it still pleasurable?

A: "Yes, particularly when it is going well. It comes more easily than other things. I have bad days of course."

Q: Your second novel, "Fountain City," you dropped and never published. Did you learn anything from that experience?