I think maximalism's endgame, or the ultimate maximalist novel, would be a book that lasts 40,000 pages and has no context. It would be a triumph of fiction or memoir for no one but the author. It's like Colm Toibin said, "Writing is as much an exercise in addition as it is erasure.

A novelist's job is almost to be a stupid as possible, except in the cunning moment when you need to structure something, when you need to be very intelligent indeed. The rest of the time, you need almost an empty mind, where you can let any image in, follow it along, and allow an emotional charge, almost the way actors and singers can work. The more instinct you have as a novelist, and the less intelligence, the better.

Q: What's the biggest myth about writing?A: That there's any wildness attached to it. Writing tends to be very deliberate."[Colm Tóibín, novelist – portrait of the artist (The Guardian, 19 February 2013)

Ending a novel is almost like putting a child to sleep – it can't be done abruptly."[Colm Tóibín, Novelist – Portrait of the Artist, The Guardian, 19 February 2013]

The problem is once you've written the opening paragraph and worked out how the rest of the story will go in your head, there's nothing in it for you. I write in longhand using disposable fountain pens on the right-hand side of the notebook for the first draft, then I rewrite some of the sentences and paragraphs on the left-hand side.

I have to write a first draft with a fountain pen before I type it up as a second.

I write with a sort of grim determination to deal with things that are hidden and difficult, and this means, I think, that pleasure is out of the question. I would associate this with narcissism anyway, and I would disapprove of it.

The sentences I write have their roots in song and poetry, and take their bearings from music and painting, as much as from the need to impart mere information, or mirror anything. I am not a realist writer, even if I seem like one.

I am violently untidy. My desk is overcrowded. I write my first drafts in longhand in a long notebook using a plastic throwaway fountain pen. Then I work on a word processor using a different desk and a different room.