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

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

I have always tended toward a lush prose style, but I take care to modulate it from story to story and to strip it down entirely when necessary.

Position yourself to succeed by doing the other things in your life that rejuvenate you. You can create little islands of time away from your novel that will help preserve your balance. Exhaustion will affect both your writing’s quality and your productivity.

When they give you things, ask yourself why. When you're grateful to them for giving you the things you should have anyway, ask yourself why.

I don't believe that climate-change fiction will change the mind of a denier because most of the deniers I've met are basically in a cult situation. It's a faith issue. It's not a rational issue. There's no fact that's going to change their mind. They simply believe in the cult of climate-change denial and it somehow feeds into the rest of the mythos of their own life story.

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.