You can go on like this for a very long time, and no one will notice. You keep thinking you're going to hit some sort of bottom, but I'm here to tell you: There is no bottom.

I tend to like order in almost every other aspect of my life, but for me, the process of writing is really chaotic and decadent and indulgent.

I still think about the writers I loved when I was a kid.

Fiction is a particular kind of rhetoric, a way of thinking that I think can be useful in your life. It asks you to image the world through someone else's eyes, and it allows you to try to empathize with situations that you haven't actually experienced.

I'd read an enormous amount but had spent so much time in my own head that I didn't have extensive social skills. Suddenly I was in this world where I was surrounded by these incredibly polished and wealthy kids who had gone to prep schools, and I felt daunted by them. I don't think people were aware of how full of anxiety I was... For a long time I felt like I was living in a place where I shouldn't have been.

I think that the way that I write stories is by instinct. You have some basic ideas - a character, or an image, or a situation that sounds compelling - and then you just feel your way around until you find the edges of your story. It's like going into a dark room... you stumble around until you find the walls and then inch your way to the light switch.

I like to sleep about four or five really solid hours at night, and then sometimes take a nap in the afternoon or early evening after dinner. I love naps.