...you need openness and inability to do anything other than get to the point.

A critical assumption is sometimes made that [Grisham, Clancey, Crichton & myself] have access to some mystical vulgate that other (and often better) writers cannot find or will not deign to use. I doubt if this is true. Nor do I believe the contention of some popular novelists... that thier success is based on literary merit -- that the public understands true greatness in ways the tight-a**ed, consumed-by-jealousy literary establishment cannot. This idea is ridiculous, a product of vanity and insecurity.

FEAR stands for face everything and recover – Old AA saying

Kids, fiction is the truth inside the lie, and the truth of this fiction is simple enough: the magic exists.

My feeling of the whole genre, of the terror tale, is this: The best thing that you can do for the readers in this field is to terrify them. It is something that is intellectual, it happens in your mind.

I'm afraid of all kinds of things. I'm afraid of failing at whatever story I'm writing - that it won't come up for me, or that I won't be able to finish it.

A little arrogance (or even a lot) isn't such a bad thing, although your mother undoubtedly told you different. Mine did. "Pride goeth before a fall, Stephen", she said... and then I found out - right around the age that is 19 x 2 - that eventually you fall down, anyway.