I was brought up in a community, in a family that valued such things as good manners, and I still do.

In a school community, someone who reads a book for some secretive purpose, other than discussing it, is strange. What was she reading for?

The former stewardess glared at her ex-pilot husband as if he had been speaking, and thinking, in the absence of sufficient oxygen.

Half my life is an act of revision; more than half the act is performed with small changes.

I'm old-fashioned, a storyteller. I'm not an analyst and I'm not an intellectual.

Along the (writing) way accidents happen, detours get taken... But these are not "divine" accidents; I don't believe in those. I believe you have constructive accidents en route through a novel only because you have mapped a clear way. If you have confidence that you have a clear direction to take, you always have confidence to explore other ways; if they prove to be mere digressions, you'll recognize that and make the necessary revisions. The more you know about a book, the freer you can be to fool around. The less you know, the tighter you get.

I've always been a fan of the 19th century novel, of the novel that is plotted, character-driven, and where the passage of time is almost as central to the novel as a major minor character, the passage of time and its effect on the characters in the story.