No, the thing is, we all love storytelling, and as a writer you get to tell stories all the time.

The despairing soul is a rebel.

'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my folder of notes - 'ideas for stories.' Eventually, I began to write it and wrote it fairly swiftly - in perhaps two months of fairly intense writing and rewriting. Most of my time writing is really re-writing.

When you are writing literary writing, you are communicating something subtextual with emotions and poetry. The prose has to have a voice; it's not just typing. It takes a while to get that voice.

Productivity is a relative matter. And it's really insignificant: What is ultimately important is a writer's strongest books.

I am always reading or thinking about reading.

Life and people are complex. A writer as an artist doesn't have the personality of a politician. We don't see the world that simply.