I'm a semi-failed writer, but I'm a capital-F Failed musician.

Memoir is a unique opportunity to revisit yourself. I don't mean by memory. I mean in the revision process. You don't just write a chapter and that's it. You must constantly return to it. You must dote on it. And even if it's saying something ugly about who you are, you have to find the poetry in it. You have to find the poetry in yourself.

My job as the novelist is to present the whole case, then the reader gets to render her verdict.

It's a beautiful aspect of narrative construction, hunting for the right images and metaphors to render our character's hearts/minds/souls as though they're ecosystems, full-fledged settings for a reader to inhabit like a place.

I always feel that as the author, once I know what a character is ashamed of, then I can go about making her truthful on the page.

In my life the right question is simply this: What can I do to be happy today?

Self-respect doesn't come naturally to me. I need to constantly remind myself and do the work to err on the side of self-respect, rather than self-punishment.