““After you finish (writing a book) you are intensely depressed. It doesn’t much matter whether the reviews are good or not. You feel empty, a field lying fallow, and you must let it stay fallow for a while. You love a book when it’s being written. You are so close to it. You are the only person who knows it and it’s still full of potential… Then, suddenly, there’s the dreadful day when you have the printed proof texts… It’s a feeling of death, really.””