The first seven years that I wrote fiction, I sent out stories and a novel and made a total of $25.

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

I think so, too. I know I felt that way. For years. It was as if I was a character in a movie and the real action was about to start at any minute. But I think some people wait forever, and only at the end of their lives do they realize that their life has happened while they were waiting for it to start.

The stories tend to be what I work on when I'm stuck. Something will just pop into my head and I'll think that's more of a story.

Who isn't crazy sometimes? Who hasn't driven around a block hoping a certain person will come out; who hasn't haunted a certain coffee shop, or stared obsessively at an old picture; who hasn't toiled over every word in a letter, taken four hours to write a two-sentence email, watched the phone praying it will ring; who doesn't lay awake at night sick with the image of her sleeping with someone else?

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

I don't know a family that isn't touched by some sort of addiction.