I think that if you're somebody who's a control freak, the process would make you crazy, but I'm kind of a process freak, so I'm excited to see what he does with it. I know it's not going to be my book, so just starting with that knowledge frees me from having to get all freaked out about it.

Learn a language of another country and then you can go to that country: a place where the problems of your family will not follow. A language they do not speak.

As if in the other side of his kiss there could ve a new life

Well, as my dad would say, it means she’s out of this shithole.

The sun came through the branches of the tree above her, and Ruth looked up past them. "I think she listens," she said, too softly to be heard.

And there she was, alone and walking out in the cornfield while everyone else I cared for sat together in one room. She would always feel me and think of me. I could see that, but there was no longer anything I could do. Ruth had been a girl haunted and now she would be a woman haunted. First by accident and now by choice. All of it, the story of my life and death, was hers if she chose tot ell it, even to one person at a time.

It's hard, because when you talk about process or your characters ruling your narrative, it sounds like you have no control, but obviously you're ultimately the author, so you do have control.