Don't touch my napkin. I do not want the server to pick up the napkin and put it on my lap. I know it belongs there; maybe I don't choose to put it there.
Be able to set a table so that you feel like you're dining, not just sitting and eating.
There are a lot of people who must have the table laid in the usual fashion or they will not enjoy the dinner.
If I get blocked, it is generally because I don't know enough about some aspect of the story or the characters. The answer for this is generally more research, or making more background notes, so the place and person can be more fully realized inside my own mind.
I don't write fantasy; I write historical novels about an imaginary place.
I have a fork and a spoon, but never a knife… as if I’m lacking manual skills or teeth. I have both, however. That’s why I’m not allowed a knife.
When I'm trying to imagine something, I have a few elements, a few ideas, maybe a certain actor or actress I want to create a certain type of character for, or maybe a certain place.
All my novels are rooted in their time and in their place.
Table the label and wear your own name.
I hadn't really thought about this until 'The Lake of Dreams,' but I've set all my stories in places that are familiar to me. It frees me up to spend more imaginative time on the characters.
I often use nameless places in my work as a way of allowing the readers to create more of the novel and to make it potentially about their experiences, what they know, a city that they have perhaps seen on television.
It's easy to set a story anywhere if you get a good guidebook and get some basic street names, and some descriptions, but, for me, yes, I am indebted to my travels to India for several of the stories.
I'm a great believer in research. I have to know about a place before I write a story that is set in that place.
I feel as though I've gotten to a point where I don't really want to set a book in any real place ever again.
Forks and spoons have probably done more to reconcile people who cannot agree than guns and bombs ever did
