Tag Archives: zerohistory

William Gibson’s new novel, Zero History, will be out on September 7th, 2010. Since March 31st, he’s been answering questions on his blog and there are a lot of insightful answers to his methodology and internal processes. Part one and part two.

Q: Which novels did you enjoy writing most?
A: Writing novels is a painful and anxiety-ridden process, for me. There are *moments* of enjoyment. I very much enjoy the state of having written.

Q: Least?
A: They’re all equally if differently painful, and each one seems, at some point, to me, to be not only a very bad novel, but the worst novel ever written. That crisis, I’ve learned, indicates that I’ll be finished soon, and that the worst is over. But knowing that doesn’t seem to decrease that devastating and absolute conviction of utter failure.

Even the greats suffer from self-doubt.