You take something from your past that you're somewhat ashamed about and you write about it from another character's point of view.

He thought it might be the most intimate thing possible, to fall asleep next to someone in the afternoon.

I wake at 5 or 5:30 most mornings, make myself a latte and grab a cookie, write until 10 or 11, go have my favorite meal, 'second breakfast,' or grab coffee with friends, or play basketball. Then, around noon, I begin apologizing via email for the manuscripts I can't get to.

Stories are people. I'm a story, you're a story ... your father is a story. Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we're lucky, our stories join into one, and for a while, we're less alone.

There was a time when self-promotion was considered so verboten, especially for authors.

I'm a professional. So before I published any novels, I'd always been writing stories.

Maybe every couple lived in the gaps between conversations, unable to say the important things for fear they had already been said, or couldn't be said; maybe every relationship started over every time two people came together.