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That is sad until one recalls how many bad books the world may yet be spared because of the busyness of writers.

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.

I've seen people around me write books, and somehow they're always in the center of everything that happened; they were the one who made it happen. There's been a lot of those books that didn't really interest me much.

One thing that worried me was how writers get categorized and so they end up having to write the same kind of book again and again. That is fine if it is what you want to do, but I would rather be locked in the trunk of my car with a weasel than write the same book every three years until I die.

I write books that will make 10 or 12 hours disappear, and hopefully they'll resonate with you for a few days, where you'll remember the characters and the story. That suits me fine; I am happy with that.

Actually my first eight books were historical novels, but they were never published.

When a book goes well, it abandons me. I am the most abandoned writer in the world.

Now, past middle age, with so many books written I still care about and only a few still in print, I know the feeling of being overlooked.

But I do think it's important to remember that writers do not have a monopoly of wisdom on their books. They can be wrong about their own books, they can often learn about their own books.

We lose stories every day because they drift out of use and into the vast limbo of in-copyright, out-of-print books whose ownership is unclear.