As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting responses to your story.

The purpose of the first draft is not to get it right, but to get it written.

You can't possibly conduct a proper affair without a lot of deliberating, scheming, speculating, and conniving. It's a delicate balance where the excitement must equal the guilt and sex must be as bright as the future you gamble.

With each draft, the work gets better, and usually that means tighter. It means getting the precise word, not the approximate word.

I was reading for understanding. I wanted to do to a reader what Salinger did for me.

Place is character. And all writing is regional.

I revise like crazy. I start revising before the pen hits the paper.