I think my work habits come from my time as a fisherman. When I’m writing, that’s pretty much all I do until I drop and sleep and get up and do it again until it’s finished. There really is an analogy to be made here with fishing. A fisherman goes out every day. The ocean covers up the fish pretty well, so it’s kind of an act of faith. You throw your line in the water and hope there are fish down there. There were yesterday, so you figure there’ll be something down there today. As a writer, you’re doing the same thing. You think there’s something under there and you’ve got to fish it out.

I think everybody has a vision of mankind, of life, of whatever it is. Part of the process of writing is not so much to explain your vision but to discover it. I think that’s what you do when you write: you find out what you think.

When we speak of the power of markets, we are referring to a form of structural power. A wheat farmer who wants to earn more income to pay for his daughter’s college tuition may decide to plant more wheat. But if other farmers plant more as well (and demand does not change), market forces may reduce his income and affect her educational prospects. In a perfect market, the agent has no pricing power. Millions of other unseen agents making independent choices create the supply and demand that determine the price. This is why poor countries that produce commodities are often subject to wide variations in their terms of trade. But if an agent can find a way to change the structure of a market by introducing an element of monopoly (a single seller) or monopsony (a single buyer), she can gain some power over price. She can do this by differentiating her product through advertising, creating brand loyalty, picking a special location, and so forth. Or in the case of oil-producing countries, agents can try to form a cartel like the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries (OPEC).