[THEME MUSIC]
-The narrative point of view didn't come naturally to me. And, in a way-- in a very real and, sort of, I think, a rather funny way, the whole conceit of cyberspace, and virtual reality, and all of these things are very much associated with most of the fiction I've written so far, I can see very clearly, right at the beginning of my career, how that sprang from an inability to physically move my characters around in the notional space of literature. I didn't know how to get character A from point B point C. I didn't know how to get him to leave the room, and walk up the stairs, and go in the other room. -And, out of the frustration with that, I came up with this conceit that allowed me to move him without having to move him physically. And, almost from the beginning, I had characters who were, sort of, shuttling backwards and forwards through various kinds of memory constructs, and plugging themselves into very dense flows of media. And, it really sprang from my inability to just physically get them off the boat. -But, by the whole time I've learned how to do that, I already had this other alternative set of strategies, which continued to intrigue me and be very handy. And, as time went on, seemed to very nicely able to describe aspects of contemporary reality in ways that more traditional fictional techniques couldn't