Fighting fear

Writing a new novel is an often hallucinatory process. It always starts out, for me, anyway, with a bang. I have an obsession, an image in my head of something pulling me forward. The first chapter nearly always writes itself, and it's a good thing, too, because the rest of the chapters are always terrifically tough to get out on paper, and in the months and years that follow, that first chapter is the thing I cling to, the reason why I can't just toss everything in the wastebasket and thin...