Farmers are patient men. They got to be. Got to see those seeds come up week by week, fraction by fraction, and sweat it out for some days not knowing yet is it weeds or vegetables.

My writing day has grown shorter as I've aged, although it seems to produce the same number of pages.

I didn't really choose to write; I more or less fell into it.

My family can always tell when I'm well into a novel because the meals get very crummy.

I've always enjoyed studying the small clues that indicate a particular class level.

Point of view is not something I consciously decide. Almost always, when I come up with a plot I find that the point of view has automatically arrived with it, part and parcel of the story.

Mostly it's lies, writing novels. You set out to tell an untrue story and you try to make it believable, even to yourself. Which calls for details; any good lie does.