[THEME MUSIC]
-I start from the beginning, and the process of rewriting or overwriting is-- it's very, very dense, at first. I mean, the first page of a novel of mine has probably been rewritten 3.000 or 4,000 times. The final page was probably written in one go. It's not that I become more lazy through the process, but it takes all of these false starts to, sort of, generate the matrix of random marks I need to call up whatever it is that meant to inhabit the space. -Most of the work is the invocation of the state that allows the work to happen. And, once you're in that state, there's a certain, just, basic discipline. Like, it's hard, but you have to get there. I actually think of it as, once it starts, I think of it, it's like driving from New York to Las Angeles. Where you just get in the car, and go, and you're not sightseeing. And, it's always kind of tough. -And, I have a page that I tore out of an old notebook, years ago, that I keep in my desk drawer. When I get-- when I'm just about to collapse in this process, I take it out, and look at. And it's all yellowed, and grungy, and it says, we're almost in Arizona. And that was a note I'd written to myself like five novels ago, when I was just about to pack it in. And I thought, no we just have to get past Needles , and then took it to the coast. It'll be OK. And, it's that way for me. But most of it is the process of entering it.