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

An inordinate love of ritual can be harmful to the soul, unless, of course, in times of great crisis, when ritual can protect the soul from fracture.

That's how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality.

A lot of the creature comforts and the things we take for granted, are not sustainable, especially at current population levels. And so, it's not just simply a matter of changing over to solar. It's a matter of changing our philosophies. Of learning to live, more or less, mid- or post-apocalyptic, whatever apocalyptic means.

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.

Once you realize there's less logic in human institutions than you once thought, you see the narrative potential in just about everything around you. Sometimes, in fact, it seems as if the human world runs on inefficiency and erratic behavior.

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.