I saw a monkey walking on a leash and thought it was an ugly foreign child.

You are allowed to be alive. You are allowed to be somebody different. You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single thing to anyone, ever.

But even with my minimal amount of fame, there are certain perks. Recently, I was at a movie premier, and at the party after the movie, Meryl Streep was loose, walking around the room like a normal person. Absolutely nothing was preventing me from lunging toward her and shrieking "Dingoes ate my baby! Dingoes ate my baby!

Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.

And I tend to listen to NPR when I'm not writing.

The truth is humbling, terrifying, and often exhilarating. It blows the doors off the hinges and fills the world with fresh air.

As a writer, you can't allow yourself the luxury of being discouraged and giving up when you are rejected, either by agents or publishers. You absolutely must plow forward.