I was very disciplined when home - lights out for the girls at 9:00, two hours of writing for me. It was murder on my marriage.

It is simply much easier to infuse life, feeling, and higher truth into a novel than a non-fiction work, to find the license to write truth without being wedded to fact.

One of the great sadnesses of my life, as I take stock at middle age, is the sense that the adventure largely ended by the time I was twenty-five.

I am not trying to be young again. But I do feel the need to capture that energy in story form before it slips from my mind, to recount those adventures if not relive them.

I have always had a hard time revising my work as a journalist, which was never much of a problem. You always have editors as backstops. Their job is to perfect your story. Most of them want to be useful.

The professions of novelist and journalist are very separate. As a novelist, you are ultimately working for yourself. Yes, you need the approval of a publisher and an audience, but what is valued in fiction writing - style, individual voice, insight - is scorned by the editor who is combing through your newspaper article.

I was very disciplined when home - lights out for the girls at 9:00, two hours of writing for me. It was murder on my marriage.