Normally I work out a general summary of what I mean to do, then start writing, and the details can be different from my anticipation. So there is considerable flow, but always within channels.

At this slower pace the journey took a couple of days, and I fought off a few minor threats along the way --griffins, carnivorous plants, giant serpents, hostile centaurs, that sort of thing, purely routine --and I was beginning to get bored when at last the dusky towers of Castle Roogna hove into view.

At the time I wrote Xone I had never been on the Internet.

But I don't read or listen for pleasure. I have too much else to do.

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

One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not. We who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them. Who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors. We are not that way from perversity, and we cannot just relax and let it go. We’ve learned to cope in ways you never had to.

I have always admired the work of Phil Farmer and was glad for the chance to work with him. Readers today may be too young to remember his classics like The Lovers.