I’ve got...ways of tricking my brain into getting what I need out of it

Film fixes a precise visual image in the viewer's head. In fiction, you just hope you're precise enough to convey the intended effect.

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.

It is the nature of the writer to question the validity of his world and yet rely on his senses to describe it. From what other tension can great literature be born?

Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.

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.

Who had the bigger burden? The one who had to watch the other person endure or the one who endured?