Nobel Prize winner Alice Munro has said that she never gave up in her writing endeavors in the face of difficulties, in a pre-recorded interview broadcast online.

As Munro was unable to visit Stockholm to receive her Nobel Prize in Literature in person, the standard lecture was replaced by a pre-recorded interview about her journey in writing.

"I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was The Little Mermaid."

Munro said she thought the story was "dreadfully sad", and so she made up a story with a happy ending; she didn't care about whether the story would spread around the world and be well-received, it was just her story.

Munro did not complete her journalism degree; however, she believes this led her to feel freer to write about whatever she thought was good and right.

She wrote a lot about women and girls.

"I never thought about being important, but I never thought of myself as being anything but a woman and there were many good stories about little girls and women."

Munro said she never experienced any feeling of inferiority due to her gender, adding that this may have been because she lived in a part of Ontario where women did most of the story-telling at home while the men mostly worked outside.

In the early stages of her writing, she always wrote stories with happy endings. However, after she read the novel Wuthering Heights, she began to write tragic stories too. While walking she also made up stories about herself being a heroine, and she knows what she wants to tell.

"I don't think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged, because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn and that it was a much much harder job than I had expected. But I didn't stop."

Munro also said that she writes stories in a very simple way and tries to explain things in an accessible way.

Lectures are traditionally given by Nobel Laureates during Nobel Week in Stockholm.

The formal awarding ceremony will be held on Tuesday -- 10th of December.