I didn't confess how wrecked I was. Let them keep thinking I was Superwoman if they wanted. I knew the truth.

So I found myself telling my own stories. It was strange: as I did it I realised how much we get shaped by our stories. It's like the stories of our lives make us the people we are. If someone had no stories, they wouldn't be human, wouldn't exist. And if my stories had been different I wouldn't be the person I am.

Some people wake up drowsy. Some people wake up energized. I wake up dead.

Writing is not a job or activity. Nor do I sit at a desk writing for inspiration to strike. Writing is like a different kind of existence. In my life, for some of the time, I am in an alternative world, which I enter through day-dreaming or imagination. That world seems as real to me as the more tangible one of relationships and work, cars and taxes. I don't know that they're much different from each other.

We kill all the caterpillars, then complain there are no butterflies.

Let no stranger intrude here, no invader trespass. This was ours, and this we would defend.

The world was quickly forgetting us. And there was little news to report.