At the end, I cobbled scenes all together and smoothed out the transitions as much as possible. Incidentally, I would not recommend this approach to writing a book, and will probably not write that way again!

One thing that was inspiring to me in my research about [Georgia] O'Keeffe was to learn that in addition to her success she had very hard times, and times when she was frustrated and uninspired.

Does art play a role in the greater good of society, or does it just promote the satisfaction of the artist? I go back and forth on that question.

Now I am as big of an [ Georgia] O'Keeffe admirer as Ivy [Wilkes] is, but that came through writing the book.

Finally, I found a wonderful agent who wanted to work with me, and she sent it to one billion publishers and received one billion rejections, until I was fortunate enough to be matched up with the Permanent Press.

I tend to only write productively for one to two hours per day, so there is plenty of time left over for me to work a day job!

When I finished the book [The Dissemblers], I sent it to one billion agents, and got one billion rejections.