I never do a full outline, and if I did, I would not feel bound to it, because the view from inside a scene can be different from the view outside it. But neither do I just start writing and see what happens; I am far more disciplined than that.

If the fiercest conglomerate monsters had souls, with all that implied, who could condemn them as evil?

I wish my readers took less of my time - about a third of my working time goes to them - but I love and need them all.

As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them.

Polishing: a useful lesson for the hopeful writer. You say your tormented prose doesn't read as well as mine? Neither does mine, at first!

Obviously it could be, because it was.

At present I answer about 100 letters a month, and read 300 emails.