There's definitely a magical quality to writing that can't be explained. I can write something I love in two days, or I can work on a story every day for months and it never comes together.

You don't need a dead father to explain a character's sadness. And impressing yourself with wit/cleverness often feels like what it is - authorial intrusion.

A story works when there's momentum, life behind the words. Some stories have this and others don't, and it's difficult to say why this is. If all stories "worked," though, writing wouldn't be much of a challenge; it wouldn't be art.

I suppose this is, essentially, my perspective on life. Just because we've made mistakes and learned things from them intellectually doesn't mean we won't continue to make the same mistakes over and over again.

I haven't taught creative writing all that much (my CW teaching consists of a few summer workshops for elementary school children and an eight-week class for older adults), and I don't really know what my teaching style is yet.

There are many stories I've wanted to write that I'm simply not able to - sometimes I haven't found the way in yet, and it doesn't matter how hard I try.

It's definitely about the rhythm of the words and how they sound together, writing one sentence and then another and another and cutting something immediately if it doesn't feel true. I come from a family of musicians and - while I have no musical abilities of my own - I think I inherited a good ear.