...came from hearing Terry Pratchett say that he never expected his readers to believe in what he wrote. I knew what he meant, since he wrote magic based fantasy books, but hearing him say it killed my interest in reading them, and instead made me want to write my own magical book which people could believe in - if they wanted to.
This wish went alongside a number of other things that frustrated me about most of the books I read: the fact that when characters died they left the story; that all the action and events took place in this single physical dimension; and that there was no other world or worlds having any part or affect on this one. I wanted more.
The underlying structure of 'ONE', and point of it, is that it's a story where all the events are inter-dependent with, and often created by, events on other levels of life. Like a metaphysical domino effect that works both ways. And because I also wanted to write a book people could believe in, if they chose, I drew only from known human belief systems - everything in the book is believed by someone, somewhere, and in some cases, by many people. I don't personally have any fixed beliefs at all about how life is. It is as much a mystery to me as anyone - if only because as soon as we say the answer is this or that, we have inadvertently claimed it is not something else. And in an infinite universe, I doubt we can say that with any real certainty. (At least, not if the tenth dimension of String Theory turns out to be real).
Anyway, I hope those who read it enjoy it. And I hope too that it offers some alternative views of what life might be all about, and how it works—and why sometimes it goes a bit wrong. And within that, somehow, that it helps people find life a bit more fun.
