And I thought my 1,600 words-per-day quota was ingrained:

Pullman spent seven years in a shed at the bottom of his Oxford garden, doing his three pages a day (no more, no less). About one in ten pages made the cut. The mathematics alone is impressive.

– From An Interview With Philip Pullman, which also features the quirky statement, “He is the most successful writer since Roald Dahl to have worked in a shed.” Pullman makes a few interesting observations about films from books, and how people receive and interpret a story, as well as giving background.

And my other writing/reading-related link for today: Why Don’t We Love Science Fiction?, an essay that sports the subtitle of ‘The British are sniffy about sci-fi, but there is nothing artificial in its ability to convey apprehension about the universe and ourselves’.

(Both via Arts & Letters Daily.)