A typical day is probably lots of meetings and stuff. But if it’s an idea that we’re developing, what might happen is I might talk to some of the people in the lab, maybe have them come in the office and brainstorm with them, and say, “Well, here’s a problem that we need to solve,” or need to solve better. So just as an example, when I had this idea that we could create better materials, I got about four or five people together with different backgrounds — chemistry, engineering, safety, toxicology — and we started putting chemical structures on the blackboard and say, “Well, this might work,” or “This might not be safe,” and ended up with certain structures that we thought would be good. And then, one of the guys would go out and try to make those structures, and we’d go from there.

I start with the first sentence. A maddening answer, and, for my own sake, I wish I had a better one. But it’s the only way I know how: one sentence on top of the other, one foot in front of the other. In that way, writing does feel exploratory to me. I never start with a map in my head or even a destination. All I have is a sense that I’m heading in an interesting direction.

It depends on the project. I’m working on a novel now, which started by taking a weird interest in something and circling around it. I think in the early stages, I like to do a lot of really rough draft brainstorming, trying to generate a lot of words, even though I know they’re not going to be part of the final draft. I find first drafts challenging and, actually, I prefer the revision stage, because it seems so daunting to create something out of nothing.

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.