Let me tell you one thing about why writers write: had I known the answer to any of these questions I would never have needed to write a novel.
Joan DidionYou have to make sure you have the characters you want. That's really the most complicated part.
Joan DidionShort stories demand a certain awareness of one's own intentions, a certain narrowing of the focus.
Joan DidionAnd I have learned now to live with it, learned when to expect it, how to outwit it, even how to regard it, when it does come, as more friend than lodger. We have reached a certain understanding, my migraine and I.
Joan DidionYou have your wonderful memories," people said later, as if memories were solace. Memories are not. Memories are by definition of times past, things gone. Memories are the Westlake uniforms in the closet, the faded and cracked photographs, the invitations to the weddings of the people who are no longer married, the mass cards from the funerals of the people whose faces you no longer remember. Memories are what you no longer want to remember.
Joan DidionWe were not having any fun, he had recently begun pointing out. I would take exception (didn't we do this, didn't we do that) but I had also known what he meant. He meant doing things not because we were expected to do them or had always done them or should do them but because we wanted to do them. He meant wanting. He meant living.
Joan Didion