It Started 25 Years Ago, When I

Stupidity Has A Price And It Always Gets Paid.

You've Probably Heard About The Theory Of Steam-engine Time - That Even After The Steam Engine Had Been Invented, It Had To Wait Until People Were Ready To Make Use Of It. The Same Thing Happens In Literary Circles. The Truth Is, I'm Not Terribly Interested In Victorian Times; I'm Interested In Victorian Writers. I'm Interested In Most Eras Of History, But Not The Victorian Era Especially. I Was Interested In The John Franklin Expedition. I Was Interested In These Last Five Weird Years Of Dickens' Life. And I Just Have To Take The Age That Comes With All That When I Write About It.

The Best Advice That An Accomplished Writer Could Give A Beginning Writer Is Probably, "find Your Slide And Then Grease It." Almost Every Writer That Wants A Rewarding Career, In Terms Of Money And Status And Number Of Readers, Finally Finds A Certain Genre Or Certain Style That He Or She Sticks With Until Reaching A Critical Mass Of Readership. And I've Violated This From The Get-go.

Most Of Us Do Know We Have No Immortality. And When You've Found A Genius, Someone Who Has Already Purchased His Immortality In Musical Or Literary Terms, It's Maddening.

If Our God's Work Is To Be Done In Our Time, We Must Do It Ourselves.