Only in novels can we take another human being into our head and create something jointly.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Somehow, you can achieve a directness in the novel that you can't get anywhere else.
Before you can write a novel you have to have a number of ideas that come together. One idea is not enough.
I know that books seem like the ultimate thing that's made by one person, but that's not true. Every reading of a book is a collaboration between the reader and the writer who are making the story up together.
The great advantage of a novel is you can put in whatever comes into your head - it has the same shape as the human brain.
With a novel, you're the director and the screenwriter and everything else, except that you have to write it knowing it will all be performed inside the head of the reader. So it's a difficult and lonely task.
It takes a lot of energy and a lot of neurosis to write a novel. If you were really sensible, you'd do something else.
The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.
When the mind, body, and spirit work together, I believe anything is possible.
There are numerous cases of that, where one of our writers discovers another writer whom he likes, and we then take that book on. So it's a very close relationship. We can do that because we're so small.
No matter who we are or what we look like or what we may believe, it is both possible and, more importantly, it becomes powerful to come together in common purpose and common effort.