I've been choking to death for years. By now this should be easy.

The best way to waste your life, is by taking notes. The easiest way to avoid living is to just watch. Look for the details. Report. Don't participate.

My writing has to excite people and depict or include their experiences. That's part of my process - to go out and interact with people. It's very much like an archival process. I understand that the Brothers Grimm would go out and get people talking so they could document folk tales that weren't being documented any other way. I try to offer a little bit of myself - some experience from my life that evokes stories in other people.

Alternating the thoughtful task of writing with the mindless work of laundry or dish washing will give you the breaks you need for new ideas and insights to occur. If you don't know what comes next in the story... clean your toilet. Change the bed sheets. For Christ sakes, dust the computer. A better idea will come.

For sure, even the worst blow job is better than, say, sniffing the best rose ... watching the greatest sunset. Hearing children laugh.

I'm always trying to reach a transcendent point, a romantic point, but reach it in a really unconventional way, a really profane way. To get to that romantic, touching, heartbreaking place, but through a lot of acts of profanity.

We just had a near-life experience!