I normally keep a series of draft in a catalogue type of book in which I scribble, sketch and draw ideas.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
A part of my kind of design and inspiration ethos is that I carry around a leather notebook and I sketch in it, doodle in it, write notes in it, and I put pictures in it.
When I began to write and used a typewriter, I went through three drafts of a book before showing it to an editor.
I'm a visual person, so it always starts with a picture, and then I get obsessed with the idea, sometimes too much. I have these blank books in which I take notes, and I add postcards and other physical items.
I'm not interested in creating a book that is read once and then placed on the shelf and forgotten.
Each book I've done somehow finds its own unique form, a specific way it has to be written, and once I find it, I stick with it.
I really strive to bring something new to each book. I don't want to write the same book over and over again.
Once I've got the first draft down on paper then I do five or six more drafts, the last two of which will be polishing drafts. The ones in between will flesh out the characters and maybe I'll check my research.
All my work begins with drawings.
I always write my first draft in longhand, in lined notebooks. I move around the house, sitting where I like, and watch the words spool out in front of me, actually taking a lot of pleasure in the way they look in my strange handwriting on the page.
I sketch literally all the time; constructing a collection is like building a family - you have to have a certain balance. I isolate myself - I need to be concentrated for this so I leave Paris, I leave to a place without a phone.