Even Jack Kerouac, who famously said, "First thought, best thought," benefited from editing. His earliest works are the most edited, and they're the best of his writing.

The biggest problem in the fictional treatment of sex is that it's not treated as part of the story but as a pause from the story. The best sex scenes in fiction are the ones that advance the story.

Living in the world of the workshop, which I do as a teacher, you have to be articulate about craft. And that often involves imposing analysis on work that's in a pretty raw state.

Even Jack Kerouac, who famously said, "First thought, best thought," benefited from editing. His earliest works are the most edited, and they're the best of his writing.

It's about transitioning from adolescence, when you live together with parents and see each other every day, to the era when you don't live together and start to grow apart and have to figure out how you're going to have an adult relationship.

Knowing that we'd meet Ruby at the point where she stopped believing, I knew I was also going to have to deal with what you do with your capacity for belief if you don't have an object for your belief.

The key is to remember a sex scene is a scene of dramatic action and psychological development. You need to pay attention to emotion and to a character's self-awareness or lack of self-awareness.