A beautiful feeling...

...Alan Hollinghurst: 'The Booker can drive people mad'

Is writing painful? For some, it's agony. "Perhaps we tend to overplay the agony side of it. But then, like any pain, when it's over, you can't remember it. So perhaps I'm wrong to say we exaggerate it. What I will say is that there are times when it's just the best thing: the high of things coming to you. You get a peculiar sense of elation, as if nothing else really matters. It's not a sense of smugness. But you're buoyed up. Your mind is wonderfully perceptive. It's a very beautiful feeling."