Some memories remain close; you can shut your eyes and find yourself back in them. But there are second-person memories, too, distant you memories, and these are trickier: you watch yourself in disbelief.

What business does memory have with time?

I come from a newspaper background, so maybe Im attuned to current events.

His life was two lives now: the life he would have and the life he would forever wonder about.

You take something from your past that you're somewhat ashamed about and you write about it from another character's point of view.

He found himself in habiting the vast, empty plateau where most people live, between boredom and contentment.

I love humor in writing, so I've written to the thing that's funny, there's the joke, but then I just kept going. I started thinking about all the bikes I've had stolen, and that got me thinking about crime, and that got me thinking about the city I'm in.