Mystery, investigation, false leads, solution - we associate that structure with genre fiction, but it exists in our real lives, too. There's no reason why literary fiction shouldn't be able to acknowledge that and make it fresh.

I'm very finicky about when I'm in the right mood to write. So most days, I find some excuse not to do anything.

I would love to learn how to air kiss non-awkwardly.

The simile has to match the tone of its surroundings and has to be like a little joke. Writing a simile that isn't funny on some level is quite hard.

I love sentences. I love characters. But most of all, perhaps, I love to work on plot, and that may be where my natural gifts lie, if I have any. I like to think hard about plots in TV shows and films.

I've never really understood that whole thing of writers avoiding other writers' novels while they're working on their own.

If I want to feel as if I'm being sucked down a fathomless gloomy tunnel for hours and hours then I have a complete set of Schopenhauer at home.