How do we come to write what we write? It’s a different question from “why”. It’s not so much a matter of reasons and motives, as of the road that lead to a particular book (or play, or story…) meant as a set of thematic, narrative and stylistic choices.

Each piece of work has its own How – long or short, a more or less disparate collection of influences, memories, circumstances, findings, likes, dislikes, long-chewed ideas and sudden epiphanies…

Certainly Stephen Jarvis’ Death and Mr. Pickwick has a remarkable How! Read his post on Work in Progress, to find out the far roots of this very Dickensian novel on a Dickensian illustrator.

Because really, novels (and plays and stories) do have their own mysterious and roundabout ways.