It got to the point where most of my time went toward writing novels. I would still occasionally write short stories, but only when I was commissioned by an editor to write for a themed anthology or special issue.
When I started out in the eighties, the idea of creating serious comics for adults was pretty laughable to most folks, and for the longest time it was hard to even explain what alternative comics or graphic novels were. Nobody seemed to understand or care. Not so, any longer.
Eventually, I realised that I wanted to try to create something myself, and that's what writing novels is. Not because I wanted to put myself in front of the world, but because I wanted to create something that would go out into the world.
My novels are all ideas.
I actually find novels that are determined to be funny at every turn quite oppressive.
I loved writing the Spellman novels, but I never had any plan to only write in one genre.
I thought that if one wanted to be a writer, one had to write novels because I didn't know that one could be a poet.
I was a sci-fi addict when I was a kid and a teenager. Novels, graphic novels, movies, it was my way to deal with reality.
Most people like a little sex in their novels.
I mean, every novel's a historical novel anyway. But calling something a historical novel seems to put mittens on it, right? It puts manners on it. And you don't want your novels to be mannered.
Not only are most of our citizens fathomlessly ignorant of the glories of American literature, a fast-growing percentage of our students are no longer taught much about any works of American art, be they novels, paintings, symphonies or ballets.
When I was a teenager, what I most wanted to read were fantasy novels. Not Tolkien and Malory, but sword-and-sorcery pulp. I craved glowy blue magic, chainmail bikinis, dragons with unpronounceable names.
When I write a novel, I want it to be completely different from a screenplay. I'm very conscious of the difference, and I want novels to work purely as novels. Otherwise I don't see how they'll survive - why don't we just all go to the movies or watch television.
Overpopulated fiction can be so confusing that readers put the story down. Under-populated novels can seem claustrophobic or boring. You want the right number of characters for your particular work.
My second, third and fourth novels were mistakes, essentially.
Modern romance novels tell a young woman that she can be successful, useful, and valuable on her own; that there are men who will respect her and treat her well; and that such men are worth waiting for.
White people use their literature to maintain culture. That's why you find references to Milton and Spencer and Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky in contemporary novels.
I never got any training in how to write novels as an English major at Oberlin, but I got some great training for writing novels from anthropology and from Margaret Mead.
If something is crucial to the plot, then I'd better be sure I've got my facts straight. Readers of crime novels are smart and savvy, and they'll waste no time letting me know if there's a hole in my plot.
For a long time, Nella Larsen was the mystery woman of the Harlem Renaissance. In the late 1920s, she published two sophisticated novels, 'Quicksand' and 'Passing,' and then her writing life came to an end. She died in obscurity in 1964.
Unlike novels with a hero or two heroines, in 'One Amazing Thing,' all the characters tell stories they've never told anyone before, so all the voices become equally important.
I'm probably only going to make 10 movies, so I'm already planning on what I'm going to do after that. That's why I'm counting them. I have two more left. I want to stop at a certain point. What I want to do, basically, is I want to write novels, and I want to write theatre, and I want to direct theatre.
Heaven knows, I've exposed myself in my novels through the use of fantasy and imagination... now my new book is about what really happened to me... not my heroines.
For me, movies and television are interesting because they are the dominant storytelling form of our time. My first love will always be fiction, and especially novels, but I'm a writer... I write poetry and essays and criticism and I'd love to write a whole play, and sometimes I even write scripts.
I'm very bad at violence in real life. I can't stand it. And I'm so fed up with crime novels that have too much violence. I can't really do it. It's unnecessary.
My second book, Follow Me Down had some success, got good critical notices, went into a second printing and things like that, but Shiloh was by far the most successful of those first five novels.
The problem with the literary hothouse of New York City is that people spend so much time looking in the mirror. They go to parties with people who are just like them, and they write novels about people who are just like them. It's limiting.
I do think novels are overlooked. I did write one some years ago that I think is quite good, called 'The End of the Story,' not to blow my own horn.
While novels are fiction, mine are usually very close to my heart. Like my other books, 'The Lemon Orchard' is inspired by something I care about. I care so deeply. The stories are my dreams, and I want to do a lot of research. Roberto is based on a real live friend of mine named Armando who worked in my garden.
Reviewers have called my books 'novels in verse.' I think of them as written in prose, but I do use stanzas. Stanza means 'room' in Latin, and I wanted there to be 'room' - breathing opportunities to receive thoughts and have time to come out of them before starting again at the left margin.
Thus far, I've devoted my entire career to publishing genre short fiction, but I now look forward to applying that same level of curation to finding the best new novels and new authors.
All novels attempt to cut neural routes through the brain, to convince us that down this road the true future of the novel lies.
I have many books that I want to write; I'd like to think that I'll be around for another 20 years or so and write another dozen novels, probably some sort of imaginative literature... Never again another seven-volume saga.
Graphic novels let you take risks that just wouldn't fly in the conventional book form.
I've ended up feeling fonder of 'The Paying Guests' than of any of my other novels.
Romance novels have the power to bring love into the lives of readers. Through the characters, we get to fall in love every time we pick up a romance novel. What could be better than that?
