When I look back over my novels what I find is that when I think I'm finished with a theme, I'm generally not. And usually themes will recur from novel to novel in odd, new guises.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Themes only arise after a novel is written, and people begin to try to talk about it.
A novel's whole pattern is rarely apparent at the outset of writing, or even at the end; that is when the writer finds out what a novel is about, and the job becomes one of understanding and deepening or sharpening what is already written. That is finding the theme.
I get very driven by certain themes and ideas.
What I like in novels that I read and enjoy is interplay of theme: the mystery of how we seem to be so separate as human beings.
I think any writer keeps going back to some basic theme. Sometimes it's autobiographical. I guess it usually is.
I don't consciously go out looking for themes. They attach themselves to me.
As an improviser, my nature is to take a theme and constantly rework it.
I never start out with any kind of connecting theme or plan. Everything just falls the way it falls. I don't ever think about what kind of fiction I write or what I am writing about or what I am trying to write about. When I'm writing, what I do is I think about a story that I want to tell.
I don't reinvent myself in any major way. It seems to be a slow evolution. I go back and visit certain themes that I feel strongly about and resonate with me emotionally.
When I begin writing, I have no idea what my novels are ultimately going to be about. I don't have a plot. I never consider a theme. I don't make notes or outlines.