I had this idea: "I'll write a Lovecraftian book about Oakland." That's where I started from. I know sometimes ideas for books come from other sorts of places, but this was my desire, and having been riding my bike past the lake in Oakland for years, the lake was where the idea grew. And I wrote. Most days I wrote a chapter. Some days I wrote a bit more, some days I didn't write, but I kept plodding along, and I tried something different than all of the other times that I've tried to write a story: I didn't edit much as I went along. I kept moving forward, promising myself I'd do lots of good editing when I was finished. And I did do lots of editing. And I had wonderful people read the first (well, second) draft and give me feedback. And I edited more. And again. Doing things this way saved my book from the dead pile of ideas that I had edited-too-early to death over the rest of my life. I carried this method forward even further--though many ...