I’ve been writing a novel, a big American novel,brutal, big, honest, and, like moneymeaning something different to everyone who reads it.But the manuscript is falling apart,the opening chapters are totally lost,and the rest is impossible to revise.I’ve tried; my editor explainsthat the plot is a mess, random criseswith no epiphany, no denouement.The theme, if it has one, is obscuredby irrelevant observations and random events.The worst thing is it’s horribly sentimental.I know I shouldn’t plead that it’s true to life.A novelist must be an artist. The facts are no excusefor sloppiness of execution and vague conception.I keep adding characters, scenes, plots;I break the rules like any avant-garde.It hurts me when my critics complainbut an artist must first please himself.So what if he can’t help it?The critics are ill-informed;they have read only short pieces of the whole.I say it’s like having an eccentric character or a bad accent;you can’t make it normal by abuse and neglect.