The effort to write a story is as intense as the beginning of a novel. For in the first paragraph of a novel everything must be defined: the structure, tone, rhythm, length and sometimes even the character of a character. The rest is the pleasure of writing, the most intimate and lonely one imaginable, and if you don't spend the rest of your life correcting your book it's because the effort to write a story is as intense as at the beginning of a novel. For in the first paragraph of a novel everything must be defined: the structure, tone, rhythm, length and sometimes even the character of a character. The rest is the pleasure of writing, the most intimate and solitary that can be imagined, and if you do not spend the rest of your life correcting your book, it is because the same iron rigor that is needed to start it is necessary and to end it. The story, on the other hand, has neither a beginning nor an end: it connects or it does not connect.