Readers occasionally ask me if I have any special superstitions or routines. I like to sit down at my desk and light a candle because there's something spontaneous about a candle flame and I believe writing too is spontaneous. The flame provides an energy maybe... I also ring a hotel-reception bell (once) which announces my arrival into the pseudo-reality of my fiction, kindve like a hotel, which is a surreal place if you ask me, it's got a quasi-reality to it which is where I like to be when writing - possible but vaguely absurd at the same time...off-kilter: a normal place where Larger than Life is menú of the day.