I have a bit of a struggle with some aspects of or forms of Buddhism, but Zen I find to be mainly congenial.

I grew up with tarot cards and the reading of tea leaves.

This strong sense of who I am that I've always had, since I was very young, is what makes me write.

I would say that, apart from being a writer, I have also always been very conscious of the idea of a 'world elsewhere'.

I'm constantly struggling with the futility and even sinfulness, from an antinatalist point of view, of creativity. And that struggle itself seems part of the creativity, though I sometimes suspect that it's nothing but a burden and an obstacle.

This is the strange thing about existing in time. As [Philip] Larkin puts it, "truly, though our element is time, we are not used to the strange perspectives open at each moment of our lives" - something like that.

My muse can take the form of a landscape, an era, a style of writing, a piece of music, and, perhaps that which I find strangest of all for a muse, a human female. Of course, she's also adept at taking the form of toothless old Japanese men or young English lads with tattoos.