The story has to flow from an unstructured, felt place, but then I have to bring my analytical brain to bear on issues of craft.

I never know where I'm headed when I'm working on a book.

We grow, we mature, some of us give birth, we age, we die.

But every age deserves its fashion and its forms, and no one can control what survives.

The story has to flow from an unstructured, felt place, but then I have to bring my analytical brain to bear on issues of craft.

In fact, not knowing is a necessary condition of writing for me. I don't know how else to reach something unexpected. I have to be as in the dark as my characters.

We are like flowers always reaching up towards some shred of light. I find this wondrous, nearly magical, certainly brave.