Usually after finishing a novel, I have a head full of bad ideas for the next one.

I was swimming in my swimming pool when 'The Secret Lovers' popped entire into my head. I got out, dried off, went upstairs, and finished the book in about 50 days.

Writing for me is not a premeditated act. It just happens - characters keep coming out of nowhere and doing things I never expected them to do. The most persistent and most productive of these has been Paul Christopher, whom I didn't expect to see again after he appeared in 'The Miernik Dossier.'

Ideas? My head is full of them, one after the other, but they serve no purpose there. They must be put down on paper, one after the other.

Despite all these obstacles and bad security situation, I have the energy and the resolve to train, but my head is full of ideas and it distracts me, and I need to focus.

What happened is the least of it. It’s a novel, and once you’ve finished a novel, what happened in it is of little importance and soon forgotten. What matter are the possibilities and ideas that the novelist’s imaginary plot communicates to us and infuses us with, a plot that we recall far more vividly than real events and to which we pay far more attention.