Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.

Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.

When writing a novel, that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.

This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.

Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.

On the whole, stories don't write themselves.