I consciously try to end my novels at a point where I won't have to wonder about my characters ever again.

View your burden as a gift. It's the theme that has been given you to work with. Accept that and lean into it.

I think it must be very hard to be one of the new young writers who are urged to put themselves forward when it may be the last thing on earth they'd be good at

(About parenting:) ... all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.

I'll write maybe one long paragraph describing the events, then a page or two breaking the events into chapters, and then reams of pages delving into my characters. After that, I'm ready to begin

When I'm working on something, I proceed as if no one else will ever read it.

The Amateur Marriage grew out of the reflection that of all the opportunities to show differences in character, surely an unhappy marriage must be the richest.