Goodreads asked S.E. Ney:

What’s the best thing about being a writer?

S.E. Ney Being your own boss! I was a teacher for 35 years (writing all that time, just nothing original!) and bit by bit the independence of thought and approach that used to mark teaching was eroded until I felt that everyone is supposed to take the same approach in the same way every time. That, to me, takes away the difference between good teachers and bad teachers (potentially a positive) and replaces it with a general mediocrity (definitely a negative) of conformism and box-ticking. With writing, so long as my readers understand me I can break rules or follow them when it suits me. In one chapter I had to try to get across something it was almost impossible to put into words, so I used formatting to get the message across. On the one hand, it hurts to read it (which is exactly what it SHOULD do), on the other, it perfectly captures what the characters are going through. Is it uncomfortable? Yes! Does it make your eyes hurt? Yes! Is it what you're supposed to do in a novel? Nope -- or, at least, I've not seen it before. That doesn't mean it's not been done, just that I've not encountered it. It was simply my way of doing it. Does it work? Absolutely, and that means it's fine. I won't have someone slamming the 'rules' in front of my face and saying 'you can't do that!' I DID do it. You don't like it, read something else!

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