As a matter of writing philosophy, if there is one, I try not to ever plot a story. I try to write it from the character's point of view and see where it goes.

I truly believe the art's larger than the artist. Who cares about John Steinbeck? I care about the Joad family.

I see a lot of marriages crash and burn around me and my wife. I've always been curious about how hard it is to love well and be loved.

I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

I love the earth too much to contemplate a life apart from it, although I believe in that life.

Romance dies hard, because its very nature is to want to live.

And I felt more like me than I ever had, as if the years I'd lived so far had formed layers of skin and muscle over myself that others saw as me when the real one had been underneath all along, and I knew writing- even writing badly- had peeled away those layers, and I knew then that if I wanted to stay awake and alive, if I wanted to stay me, I would have to keep writing.