I've realized that with each novel I seem to set out a kind of puzzle for myself. And I am never sure in the process of writing a first draft how it's all going to turn out.

I think it's still difficult to write about motherhood and anxiety, that talking about not wanting to be a mother or feeling ambivalent about motherhood makes people uneasy. The ambivalent mother is certainly much more interesting.

As soon as you start to question your own intent while you're still in the process of discovering your story, you're in trouble because you've pulled out of that unconscious space that is so necessary in the beginning of the drafting process.

I've realized that with each novel I seem to set out a kind of puzzle for myself. And I am never sure in the process of writing a first draft how it's all going to turn out.

What I find interesting and heartening, though, is that there does seem to be a shift in the subject matter being written about by women that is doing well in the culture. We're seeing more women writing dystopian fiction, more women writing novels set post-apocalyptic settings, subjects and themes that used to be dominated by men.

I could have a lot of fun with Michael Jackson, I'm sure.

I'd say that most of life seems to me to be that way, a mixture of the mundane and the mythic, when you're living the life of the mind.