My approach is to treat writing very much as a job.

Writing novels is largely about endurance and patience. I take a lot of breaks, hit walls, and go do something else while I think things through. But I do it every day, and I try to treat it as a job, something that is not dictated by whimsy or muses.

When I'm writing, I'm in an isolation chamber. I'm not one to think about that outside world stuff when I'm writing.

For me, most of the anxiety and difficulty of writing takes place in the act of not writing. It's the procrastination, the thinking about writing that's difficult.

It's hilarious to me that by writing an obscene fake children's book I am mistaken for a parenting expert.

There's a lot of demand to hear the new Kanye West album before it hits the streets. There's much less demand to read the new Phillip Roth novel.