I seem always to have two or three novels going at once. It takes me a long time to finish one.
Absurdity isn't quite so absurd as it once was.
Paranoia can be a sign of a sanity in some circumstances, in some places and times.
Many of the concepts we once thought belonged to speculation or science fiction are now part of our understood reality.
The real past can traumatize us, but so can the real future.
Novels seem to exist because of this need to know and connect, and so story becomes charged with necessity.