People - me included - want to get excited about books. Good books are a good thing.

Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred.

How often have I met and disliked writers whose books I love; and conversely, hated the books and then wound up liking the writer? Too often.

In our world no one ever knows what to do, and everyone's just as clueless and full of crap as everyone else, and you have to figure it all out by yourself. And even after you've figured it out and done it, you'll never know whether you were right or wrong. You'll never know if you put the ring in the right volcano, or if things might have gone better if you hadn't.

Becoming an author changes your attitude too. Once you see where books come from, and how they're made, they never seem quite as sacred again.

You don't want to move toward some utopian literary situation where everybody's free of all conventions. That's ridiculous! Conventions are what you need. You have nothing to break down if you don't have conventions.

The line between outside and inside is fuzzier in fantasy. Maybe that's something people are looking for.