Oftentimes, if a writer really gets her hooks into me, I'll want to read interviews, or listen to an interview, or read a literary biography or a memoir of some kind. And doing so almost always deepens my enjoyment of the author and her work.

I can think of plenty of writers whose work I revere and whose lives I know little about.

To do my job well, I have to be a good listener. The listening is so much more important than the talking.

For writers, so much is done in isolation. It can be easy to feel detached, or to get a little lost along the way.

Getting tired of sitting, staring at my computer screen, day after day, where everyone is two-dimensional, reduced to an avatar photo, status updates, or maybe some carefully curated vacation photos. There's something exhausting about that after a while. I found myself wanting to hear voices.

I feel like it's a good time to be a writer. I'm terminally optimistic. It seems like the publishing industry is in the middle of a big transition, and that the rules of the game are still sorting themselves out.

I have way too much going on, as usual, but fortunately it's all good stuff. I'm not complaining.