I am not extremely good in plotting. I really don’t care how the story works out. Let it find its own way. I am not good in psychology, and I don’t deal with characters who are driven by forces which I myself don’t understand. My understanding is rather simplistic. I am not especially good at humor; I wish I were. And, I am certainly not a stylist in English language, using arcane words and very fanciful construction and so on. There is a great deal I can’t do but… Boy, I can tell a story. I can get a person, with moderate interest in what I am writing about, and if she or he will stay with me for the first one hundred pages, which are very difficult, and I make them difficult, he will be hooked. He will want to know what’s happening on the next story and the next story and the next. That I have. And that’s a wonderful gift. That’s storytelling. And I prize it. I try to keep it cleaned up. I try to keep it on focus. I am wretched when I fail and feel a sense of terrible defeat. I believe throughout history, through all of history, way back to the most early days of the human race, when people gathered around the fireplace at night, they wanted to remember what had happened and reflect upon the big events of that day and reassess values and maybe get new dedication to the next day. Well, I’m one of the guys who sat around the fireplace and did the talking.