It's easier to write about a place sometimes when you've left it, when you can apply your imagination to your memory and let your emotions guide the writing about a place.

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.

The landscape of childhood shapes us as it shapes the characters in our stories. You never forget the sacred places of your childhood.

Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love that's essential.

Novels are written, not wished into existence. You have to sit your ass in the chair or nothing gets done.

Revision is not the end of the creative process, but a new beginning. It's a chance not just to clean up and edit, but to open up and discover. The energetic prose comes about from all the energy that went into crafting it, I suppose.

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