No... a novel is a long business. I'm a slow writer, even when I'm doing very well I write slowly.

I have a huge and savage conscience that won't let me get away with things.

Sometimes being a friend means mastering the art of timing. There is a time for silence. A time to let go and allow people to hurl themselves into their own destiny. And a time to prepare to pick up the pieces when it's all over.

He was like me - a kindred spirit crazy enough to keep on trying.

To get along with God, Consider the consequences of your behavior. Earthseed: The Books of the Living

I'm a 48-year-old writer who can remember being a 10-year-old writer and who expects someday to be an 80-year-old writer. I'm also comfortably asocial -- a hermit in the middle of Los Angeles -- a pessimist if I'm not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty, and drive.

Every story I create, creates me. I write to create myself.