Where we are from... [s]tories are factual. If a farmer is declared a music virtuoso by the state, everyone had better start calling him maestro. And secretly, he'd be wise to start practicing the piano. For us, the story is more important than the person. If a man and his story are in conflict, it is the man who must change.

A good story feels both surprising and inevitable, fresh and familiar.

The urge to create a fictional narrative is a mysterious one, and when an idea comes, the writer's sense of what a story wants to be is only vaguely visible through the penumbra of inspiration.

Writing is hard work, and if anything's true about the process, it's that fact that a good story is hard to find and even trickier to get on paper. What's less romantic than staring alone at a blank screen? And edgy? I've changed the cat little because I didn't know what my characters were going to say next.

The next day, she was silent. For breakfast, she murdered an onion and served it raw.

Imagine a world in which no writer has written a literary novel in sixty years. Imagine a place where not a single person has read a book that is truly about the character at its center.

Life brings what it brings. I might be young but I've learnt this: prepare for each blind corner with your strongest shoulder dropped, ready to smash through whatever is thrown at you next. Once the dust clears you will be standing tall, a champion, a victor. NOTHING will be able to knock you down once you've taken the biggest hits this life has to offer, so come on life, BRING IT!