I had written about a half-dozen short stories, and they started to feel more like part of one novel.

It's easy to feel like it's a frivolous hobby that's taking away from important things.

Six of one, half dozen of another. Oh, well, half of one, six dozen of the other.

It's just six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.

With a novel, which takes perhaps years to write, the author is not the same man he was at the end of the book as he was at the beginning. It is not only that his characters have developed--he has developed with them, and this nearly always gives a sense of roughness to the work: a novel can seldom have the sense of perfection which you find in Chekhov's story, The Lady with the Dog.

This is not simply a matter of one or two or a half-dozen similarities.