Cram your head with characters and stories. Abuse your library privileges. Never stop looking at the world, and never stop reading to find out what sense other people have made of it. If people give you a hard time and tell you to get your nose out of a book, tell them you're working. Tell them it's research. Tell them to pipe down and leave you alone.

Women are far and away the bigger consumers of fiction than men, but men are still far and away the more reviewed, the more critically esteemed, the more respected. That can get frustrating.

There are a lot of women like me in the world, and we rarely get to see ourselves.

I think every person who is single should have a dog. I think the government should step in and intervene: If you're not married or coupled up, whether you've been dumped or divorced or widowed or whatever, they should require you to proceed immediately to the pound nearest you and select an animal companion.

If there had been an exercise I'd liked, would I have gotten this big in the first place?

I'm going to continue writing. I'll always be a storyteller. But I'm also taking time to enjoy my life.

The condom broke. I know how stupid that sounds. It's the reproductive version of the dog ate my homework.