There is part of me that longs to have the back-to-the-earth life - make my own bread, grow my own wheat, just be really self-sufficient - but I am not, at the moment, willing to give up the luxury of modern life, and amazing schools for my kids, and things that I've come to rely on that are parts of society.

It's more like I write multiple first drafts, handwritten. So with my first novel, I wrote whole drafts from different points of view. There are different versions of that novel in a drawer on loose-leaf sheets. I won't even look at the first draft while I'm writing the second, and I won't look at the second before writing the third.

I'm always hungry for people.

I won't walk under scaffolding or under ladders. I wear things like a baseball player wears things that are supposed to have luck. I am superstitious about everything.

Even the presence of my kids cannot, during those writing hours, disturb me. Unless there's a bone sticking out of their arm, I'm not interested.

Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.

I try not to think too much or be too impatient, and let the back of my brain do its mysterious work.