[seconds and decades]

Ian McEwan, in this week's New Yorker:
"McEwan said that he never rushes from notebook to novel. 'You've got to feel that it's not just some conceit,' he said. 'It's got to be inside you. I'm very cautious about starting anything without letting time go, and feeling it's got to come out. I'm quite good at not writing. Some people are tied to five hundred words a day, six days a week. I'm a hesitater.'"