When I pick up a pencil, that this is a rough draft. This is not going anywhere, and no one's going to see it. You have permission to make all the mistakes you want. It signals freedom to me, and it signals mistakes. Then when I put it on the computer, a different part of my brain kicks in and I really evaluate every single word and sentence and make decisions. I like that step of polishing while I'm rewriting the entire thing, not just cutting and pasting. Really putting in every word and making a decision: is this something I can stand by?

I always had this put-together family, and I always identified as the outsider. And that's a position where I feel most comfortable, and yet I feel an incredible longing to belong. That is really a strong feeling from my childhood - a desire to be part of a group.

I've always thought of writing as sort of active communication.

I love this idea of trying to create that intellectual eroticism. That was what I was working toward all along.

There are certain tribes in the middle Sepik that eat raw bat. A certain kind of raw bat is a delicacy.

I'm always interested in a claustrophobic situation where people might be powerless to do things.

I tend to elongate the sentences as I'm writing and editing, and there is just something about the feeling of writing longhand that I really love.