Sometimes it can be useful to read your bad reviews.

If I'd done the discovery before I wrote the book, then there would be nothing to discover. It would feel dutiful instead of exciting.

I wish somebody knew whether or not I'm Jewish.

I needed to understand this random bad bit of luck as part of a bigger design. Otherwise I was suffering meaninglessly. This made the suffering a lot worse.

I spend far too much time on eBay buying lamps and upholstery remnants.

I calmed myself by walking into my nearby bookstore and marveling at all the books other people had written. So many people had finished and published novels; it couldn’t be so hard, right?

Structure is, for me, the most fun challenge about writing novels.