For me, a paragraph in a novel is a bit like a line in a poem. It has its own shape, its own music, its own integrity.
The medical nanobots in my novel 'Small Miracles' tap the energy sources that the patient's own body provides. That is, they can metabolize glycerol and glucose, just as the cells in our bodies do.
In our own state, we came up with, I think, what was a very novel approach to closing the gap on the uninsured. To harmonize medical records - which was a major step in getting costs out of the system.
I will say that there is an inordinate amount of medicine in my novels, especially the first one. There are a lot of medical things that happen. A hip fracture, three different kinds of lung cancer, pneumonia, blood poisoning, and so on.
Writers of novels and romance in general bring a double loss to their readers; robbing them of their time and money; representing men, manners, and things, that never have been, or are likely to be.
I've always felt that the comic strip medium stands equally beside all the other story telling mediums: novels, movies, stage plays, opera, you know, you name it.
I have nothing against these big CGI movies, but there are not enough of the other ones - the ones with stories about character that have a beginning, a middle and an end. I said that to a couple of studio heads and they said, 'That's novel.'
I write what I call 'novels of consolation' for people who are bright and sophisticated.
I resist when someone calls me a novelist: it implies some kind of inherent superiority of the novel. I'm not a novelist, I'm a writer.
I never plot out my novels in terms of the tone of the book. Hopefully, once a story is begun it reveals itself.
I've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days.
If you wrote a novel in South Africa which didn't concern the central issues, it wouldn't be worth publishing.
The most difficult novel I have had to write in terms of just getting it done was The Vampire Lestat. It took a year to write.
If I use the word 'khichdi' in my novel, I don't have to get into the trouble of explaining that it is a dish of rice and lentils. My Indian readers know it.
My writing often contains souvenirs of the day - a song I heard, a bird I saw - which I then put into the novel.
I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again.
The most important basis of any novel is wanting to be someone else, and this means creating a character.
Life is like a novel. It's filled with suspense. You have no idea what is going to happen until you turn the page.
I challenge you to make your life the masterpiece you want to paint, the novel you want to read, the day you want to wake to.
Critics who do the weekly recap, I find that kind of absurd. That's like reviewing chapters in a novel.
I do novels a bit backward. I look for a situation, a milieu first, and then I wait to see who walks into it.
