People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales.

Like some kind of particularly tenacious vampire the short story refuses to die, and seems at this point in time to be a wonderful length for our generation.

And I thought, eight years ago, when I began carefully charting the progress of American Gods, nervously dipping my toes into the waters of blogging, would I have imagined a future in which, instead of recording the vicissitudes of bringing a book into the world, I would be writing about not-even-interestingly missing cups of cold camomile tea? And I thought, yup. Sounds about right. Happy Eighth birthday, blog.

It's just harder out there in the world of the living, and we cannot protect you out there as easily. I wanted to keep you perfectly safe...But there is only one perfectly safe place for your kind, and you will not reach it until all your adventures are over and none of them matter any longer.

A novel seemed the easiest way to get what I had had in my head into the inside of other people's heads. Books are good that way.

How would you feel about life if Death was your older sister?

When writing a novel, that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.