[THEME MUSIC]
-Right now, I'm working on very long, complex, historical novel. So, when you just saw me dashing to look at things, I had to mention some film's stars, and some films of 1916. Well, it's just a kid back in 1916, I barely remember what the movies were, so I had to look in encyclopedia. -What you're doing in producing a finished work, is seducing the audience into your point of view. You want them to believe it's totally credible. And, in my historical novels, I try to make it as true as possible. But, the fun for me, for instance in The Road to Wellville, is to draw a fine line between what is pure invention, where I'm just sitting here, improvising, as you say. Untapping-- tapping unconscious, and going on, and what it is real historical fact. -And, in Wellville, the most absurd stuff is the true stuff, the real stuff that really happened. And, to separate that from what I invent is probably something no one could do except me, because I'm the one who knows what's true, and what's not. But, that's the fun of doing an historical novel, for me. -But, again, many of my short stories, and my shorter contemporary novels, deal with current things, current issues. Like The Tortilla Curtain, for instance, we're dealing with illegal immigration. That's a different sort of research, and a different sort of text that you need to read. -I use the Library resources as much as possible. And, you know, librarians are pretty friendly, for the most part. You could say, "You know, I need a map of Argentina in detail." And, within a minute, the reference library will have it there for you. They're pretty amenable people. -I get just what I need to get myself going. You can see all the texts sitting around us. You can't see them from this camera angle, but this room is full of library books. They're all over the place. I take these out of USC, sometimes for years, while I'm working on a given project. -I need to know everything about the period in America of 1900 to 1930, right now. That's not simply what people wore and ate, but what current events were, what was going on, what people talked like, which, of course, you get from reading novels of the period. But, yes, of course, even if you're doing a fairly simple story, but it's on a subject, you need to know about the subject.