A beginning idea for a book might be: a boy emerges from a hole in the ground. He enters a house. The book will take place in the first ten minutes following his arrival.

That would be the death of anyone - to recognize false hopes with a certainty. One mustn't know that. If it is offered, refuse!

Not that believing such things has anything to do with whether they are true. You see that, don't you?

One can't say how one behaved or why, really. Such situations, they are far more complex than any either/or proposition. It is simplistic to produce events in pairs and lean them against each other like cards. I suppose if you a playing go or shogi, then such a thing might be helpful, but that is not life.

I have a different purpose in writing each novel. Some of them seem more similar than others, but the purposes are always different.

I have a very basic notion of the structure the book might have - that's mostly it. The rest is luck and happenstance.

I'm confused, and brilliant books help me to be less so.