"The process of writing a novel is getting to know more about the novel until you know everything abo..." — Martin Amis

All novelists write in a different way, but I always write in longhand and then do two versions of typescript on a computer.

The process of writing a novel begins with a pang, a moment of recognition, and a situation, a character, or something you read in a paper, that seems to go off, like a solar flare inside your head.

Every 10 years you're a different person, and the really great books evolve with you as you get older. They're full of new rewards.

When I wrote 'The Pregnant Widow' three or four years ago, I tried to reread my first novel, 'The Rachel Papers,' because their young heroes are the same age. I couldn't finish it. It seemed to me so technically slapdash and weak.