The music I listen to while writing is really scene-specific. It's just a great motivator, a way to put myself in the mood.

But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?

There's also a lot of gritty Americana type of bands. I actually have a lot of Britpop on my iPod, too.

I see music as an aid. It overcomes my internal editor, especially when the music evokes the character or the mood I'm trying to build.

History has shown us all too often the consequences of dreaming poorly or not at all.

I have received emails from readers who have said that they were emotionally impacted by the books, and they feel they are more environmentally aware and energized to do more. So that's hopeful to me. It is at least evidence of what I'm trying to do - trying to convey very intense emotional experiences by being very close in on character points of view to make you feel it in your body. That's one way to get the point across, by evoking a visceral response.

The city might be savage, stray dogs might share the streets with grimy urchins whose blank eyes reflected the knowledge that they might soon be covered over, blinded forever, by the same two pennies just begged from some gentleman, and no one in the fuming, fulminous boulevards of trade might know who actually ran Ambergris-or, if anyone ran it at all, but, like a renegade clock, it ran on and wound itself heedless, empowered by the insane weight of its own inertia, the weight of its own citizenry.