I Think It's A Very Bad Idea

It Is Really Irritating To Work With Irritating People

I Think Comedy Is So Much Easier To Do On The Page Than It Is In Real Life. When I'm Writing, Comedy Is An Easy Way To Win Over The Reader. You're Automatically More Disposed To Keep Reading, Thinking Maybe, "i'll Get Another Laugh Or Two." I Think It's A Survival Instinct In Me. I Mean, You Don't Want To Lose These Guys Within Five Or Ten Pages. You Want Them To Keep Going. I Think To Some Extent It's A Desperate Measure That I Throw Out There, Because A Novel Isn't A Complete Waste Of Time If It Made You Laugh.

I Always Knew From The Beginning That This Was The Only Way To Write Then We Came To The End - That It Had To Be In First - Person Plural If It Was Going To Illustrate How The Individual Becomes Part Of The Collective. I Had No Interest In Writing The Book In A More Conventional Voice. It Goes Back To That Fascination I Had With Telling A Story In Multiple Ways. It Was The Only Choice I Gave Myself, Really - I Said "this Is It, Pal. If You Can't Tell A Story This Way, You're Going To Have To Abandon The Book. Write It This Way Or Give Up."

Everything Was Always Something But Something – And Here Was The Rub – Could Never Be Everything.

I Think A Fairly Common Behavior Among Fiction Writers Is That They Want To Help. They're Generally Charitable People. They're Interested In The World. They're Curious, They're Empathetic. They Understand Suffering. They Don't Turn Away From That. But What They Do Is Essentially Useless. Except For The Sake Of The Thing Itself.