Toni Morrison talks writing process, new book

(CBS News) The process of writing has been called one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.

But author Toni Morrison calls writing books, "Eden."

"It's everything," Morrison told "CBS This Morning" co-host Charlie Rose in a pre-taped interview.

"It's so free, and it has a danger that I can control. You know the danger of making a mistake, doing it wrong. But I can control that, and its mine. And nobody tells me what to do," Morrison said.

Morrison made the comments while talking about her tenth novel, "Home." Set in the 1950s, it's the story of Korean War veteran Frank Money's desperate journey to save his younger sister.

"He has to go back through the country which is really like another battle field for him," Morrison said. "And he is ripping away, or I am, that glorious period that we think of now as the '50s. And I'm just looking underneath the sunshine to find out what the '50s were really and truly like."

Morrison, one of America's most celebrated authors, has received a Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Nobel Prize in literature. She's due to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom Tuesday.

(Watch the full interview in the video player above.)