You are going to love some of your characters because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason.

My heart was broken and my head was just barely inhabitable

I do for myself exactly what I would do for you - make a lovely cup of tea, or a hot bath, or go buy myself a fabulous pair of socks. I believe that you take the action, and THEN the insight follows - I do loving things for me, stroke my own shoulder, put myself down for a short nap, and the insight follows: that I am a wild precious woman, a human merely being, as e e cummings put it, deserving of respect, tenderness, protection, delight, and solidarity. And that is what Home looks like for me now.

The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it...I would discover that it hadn't washed me away.

Publication is not all that it is cracked up to be. But writing is.

If you don't believe in God, it may help to remember this great line of Geneen Roth's: that awareness is learning to keep yourself company. And then learn to be more compassionate company, as if you were somebody you are fond of and wish to encourage. I doubt that you would read a close friend's early efforts and, in his or her presence, roll your eyes and snicker. I doubt that you would pantomime sticking your finger down your throat. I think you might say something along the lines of, 'Good for you. We can work out some of the problems later, but for now, full steam ahead!

I don't have very sophisticated taste in music. I listen to a lot of folk music. I like reggae.