I guess I consider myself at times to have intuition.

Of course a magazine is usually more interesting than a conversation, because so much more time and preparation has gone into it.

Later on, when I tried to imagine how I might have ruined things, that would occur to me - that I'd so rarely resisted, that I hadn't made it hard enough for him. Maybe it was like gathering your strength and hurling your body against a door you believe to be locked, and then the door opens easily - it wasn't locked at all - and you're standing looking into the room, trying to remember what it was you thought you wanted.

When I was writing my first two books I was also freelancing and teaching and doing other odd jobs.

Personally, I have never wished I were a male novelist.

I have this theory that the likeability question comes up so much more with female characters created by female authors than it does with male characters and male authors

I think I write what's interesting to me, and so if I'm reading I like to have a very thorough idea of a character in a book that's by someone else.