It turned out that writing what you were already thinking about wasn’t creative, or even writing. It was “navel-gazing.” To be obsessed by your own life experience was childish, egotistical, unartistic, and worthy of contempt. I tried to get around the problem by ascribing my own thoughts and observations to a fictional character—one with a neutral, universal name, because I didn’t want to seem like I was constantly harping on being Turkish.
