In the beginning, when I was trying to write, I couldnt turn off the outside world to the extent that I can now.

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.

Get in, get out. Don't linger. Go on.

You're...writing for other writers to an extent-the dead writers whose work you admire, as well as the living writers you like to read.

Something’s died in me,” she goes. “It took a long time for it to do it, but it’s dead. You’ve killed something, just like you’d took an axe to it. Everything is dirt now.

That morning she pours Teacher's over my belly and licks it off. That afternoon she tries to jump out the window.

A great danger, or at least a great temptation, for many writers is to become too autobiographical in their approach to their fiction. A little autobiography and a lot of imagination are best.