Book tours are excellent things, and one is lucky to get to go on one, but they have a way of leeching away one’s will to live.
How often have I met and disliked writers whose books I love; and conversely, hated the books and then wound up liking the writer? Too often.
I came from an anxious, overly intense East Coast academic family. That was the way of our tribe.
I guess I was raised in a household with a lot of reverence for the physical sanctity of books. You didn’t destroy books.
I mean, when you’re tired of book reviews, you’re tired of life.
I never thought about doing a sequel when I was actually writing ‘The Magicians.’ I only ever considered it a standalone.
I’m not one of your knockabout, knuckle-scarred, Internet-controversy-courting book critics. Occasionally I stumble into controversy accidentally, but not because I enjoy it. It’s probably just because I’m a weird person.
It’s wonderful to play around with fantasy, because there are an amazing number of as-yet-unbroken rules out there.
It’s a great thing when you feel that you recognize yourself, deeply and movingly, in a work of literature.
The problem with growing up is that once you’re grown up, the people who aren’t grown up aren’t fun anymore.
It was so much easier to be angry. Being angry made him feel strong, even though – and this contradiction did nothing to diminish his anger – he was angry only because his position was so weak.
You don’t want to move toward some utopian literary situation where everybody’s free of all conventions. That’s ridiculous! Conventions are what you need. You have nothing to break down if you don’t have conventions.
A magician is strong because he feels pain. He feels the difference between what the world is and what he would make of it. Or what did you think that stuff in your chest was? A magician is strong because he hurts more than others. His wound is his strength.
It’s very important, at least to me as a writer, that there be some rules on the table when I’m writing. Rules come from genres. You’re writing in a genre, there are rules, which is great because then you can break the rules. That’s when really exciting things happen.
We have lived too long. The great days are past.
The truth doesn’t always make a good story, does it?
In a way fighting was just like using magic. You said the words, and they altered the universe. By merely speaking you could create damage and pain, cause tears to fall, drive people away, make yourself feel better, make your life worse.
I feel that’s one of the central questions of fantasy. What did we lose when we entered the 20th and 21st century, and how can we mourn what we lost, and what can we replace it with? We’re still asking those questions in an urgent way.
The danger would be going back, or staying still. The only way out was through. The past was ruins, but the present was still in play.
Until now, I’ve been a kind of binge-writer – I’ll carve out five or six hours on a weekend day and make a large container of espresso and just bang out a lot of words.