The eleventh commandment of a motion picture negotiation: Thou shalt not take less than thy last deal.

I started all over again on page 1, circling the 262 pages like a vulture looking for live flesh to scavenge.

Novels do take charge of the writer, and the writer is basically a kind of sheepdog just trying to keep things on track.

Because one has written other books does not mean the next becomes any easier.

The point of a notebook is to jumpstart the mind.

I’ve always thought a novelist only has one character and that is himself or herself.

Writing is manual labor of the mind: a job, like laying pipe.