“None of my stories are in the least autobiographical, and I rarely--almost never--put real people or incidents in my stories, and then only as a foundation on which the action of the story may go forward. My stories are built up from my imagination, character after character, plot, action and finale. I try to work out everything logically, and after I have written a story I go over it and turn the cold eye of criticism on its chronology and the convincingness of its detail. Heaven forefend that I should intimate that I make no mistakes in these,--but at least I try to get them right. That is where my long editorial training is an asset. “Furthermore, what my various characters say does not necessarily reflect my own views or beliefs--I have no propaganda spirit--the story’s the thing. Time and time again have indignant readers berated me for beliefs expressed in the speeches of my characters--beliefs which were at wide variance with my own, but perfectly in keeping with the character who expressed them. “(I seem to be wandering away from my theme, Mr. Overton, and truly, it all seems very silly and flat to me. Here are some unrelated facts which you may be able to use somehow--they sound like the answers to an _Alice in Wonderland_ questionnaire.) “I read heaps of biography and autobiography and fiction and poetry, and I do not read any of these because of the possible effect they may have on my work, but because I like to. I read all the magazines, too, but because it is part of my job to see what they are doing. I would rather be unhappy than uncomfortable. I am a good cook and like to do it; indeed I can make better gingerbread and better spoon-bread and better strawberry preserves than any one in the world--this is not arrogance, but a beautiful exceptional truth, as Mr. Bob Davis [Robert H. Davis, editor of _Munsey’s Magazine_] would say. I work very hard, all the time, and I do not like parties and teas and such and never go to them, when I can get out of it. I write whenever I have any time and I have trained myself to use any time I can get and to go on with a story without re-reading what I’ve already written, even after a lapse of several days. I am an individualist without having the least conviction that it’s the best thing to be. I do not take my own--or most other people’s--writing very seriously. I believe that there was never a time when so many people were writing and writing well, but saying nothing of interest or value. On the other hand, I believe that there is a lot of big work being done and that the mediocre stuff doesn’t really obscure it. I’d rather be an editor than a writer, but I like to be both. “(Now, really--this is getting ‘curiouser and curiouser,’ to revert again to _Alice_. Will it do--or won’t it? And, if not, what have I left unsaid that I ought to have said? I am gradually working myself up, I am afraid, into a state of self-conscious muzziness. And I don’t want _that_ to go into your book.)”