"And you don't write at night?"
"No; nurse always turns the gas down."
I had read somewhere that among the novelist's greatest difficulties is that of sustaining his own interest in a novel day by day until it is finished.
"Until your new work is completed do you fling your whole heart and soul into it? I mean, do you work straight on at it, so to speak, until you have finished the last chapter?"
"Oh, yes."
The novelists were lately reproved in a review for working too quickly, and it was said that one wrote a whole novel in two months.
"How long does it take you to write a novel?"
"Do you mean a long novel?"
"Yes."
"It takes me nearly an hour."