Author Hilary Mantel: 'It won’t all be novels now — it could be plays' ~ Writes with severe Endometriosis

"Mantel has written about the severe endometriosis that doctors failed to diagnose in her youth; how it caused the loss of her fertility and the doubling of her body weight in less than a year.

Now she says the condition defined her as a writer, indeed made her one. “You really live on the verge of panic because you don’t know what’s going on inside you. And when the pain isn’t there, you know it’s waiting for you. It’s why I became a writer in the first place. I don’t like to let people down and I couldn’t have gone into an office every day.

“Sometimes I’ve travelled [to author events] and gone on stage when any sensible person would have stayed at home. I have sat in car parks thinking, ‘Do I go in and do the talk or do I go to A&E?’"

http://www.standard.co.uk/goingout/theatre/author-hilary-mantel-it-wont-all-be-novels-now--it-could-be-plays-9245466.html