I am generally wary of the demand for 'likeability' in fiction, which I think is a bastardisation of the demand of identification - itself something of a suspect notion.
Newspapers are busily experimenting with different models. Traditionally, and I suspect in hindsight very mistakenly, online news was free. And once given free access readers felt it was their entitlement.
Everyone succumbs to finitude. I suspect I am not the only one who reaches this pluperfect state. Most ambitions are either achieved or abandoned; either way, they belong to the past. The future, instead of the ladder toward the goals of life, flattens out into a perpetual present.
Maybe we're kind of predisposed to think that anything a politician does is calculated and therefore suspect.
I suspect there are people in all walks of life who need to be dragged into the 21st century in terms of attitudes towards women.
To speak about notation as the only way that you can guarantee structure of course is already very suspect.
You always notice a facelift on a woman. It's a tightness around the ears, and the scar is usually inside the ears. If I suspect it's been done, I usually move around until I can see it. But with a man, it actually pulls your beard and your sideburns back, and that's what's so strange.
I envy people with dreams and passions, but I don't think that way. I still don't have a 'bliss' to follow. For people like me - I suspect that's most people - holding out for a 'dream' or a 'passion' is paralyzing. I just like having work I enjoy that feels meaningful. That's hard enough... but it's enough.
I suppose Virgin is an unusual brand in that I suspect we're the only 'way of life' brand in the world. We're one of maybe the top 30 best known brands in the world, yet if you look at the other 29, they all specialize in one area. Whether it's Google, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, etc., they all generally specialize in one area.
Some writers - most, I suspect - write in isolation. I think I'd always found that quite difficult.
There is no rule more invariable than that we are paid for our suspicions by finding what we suspect.
