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I feel like I don't understand time in novels, really. I bumble forward, is all.

Thing is, I don't really like free time. People are always warning me that I'm going to burn out. But the truth is, the only thing that tires me out is hearing people tell me that.

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write.

I have a hard time with free time.

The actual writing time is a lot shorter than the thinking time. I don't do too many notes. I keep it mostly in my head. I usually start writing a new book around January, and it's due October 1.

It can be dismaying, all the same, for a novelist to compare the slowness of the writing with the speed of the reading. Novels are read in a matter of days, even hours. A writer may labor for weeks over a particular passage that will have its effect on a reader for an instant - and that effect may be subliminal or barely noticed.

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that.

Since I make my living as a literary journalist, not a book scout, I spend inordinate amounts of time either reading or writing.

I typically spend a year thinking about a book before I begin writing it.