I was raised a Catholic, but with very liberal parents, so I had to find my spirituality. I've been looking for it since I was a child. I would find it in pieces of art, music, flowers, trees. Now I've come full circle finding God in clouds, flowers, and trees.

Think about the books that you were reading at a certain crisis in your life, what you were reading, and that's because you needed them to nourish your alma.

I think my family and closest friends are learning about my need to withdraw, and I am learning how to restore and store my energy to both serve the community to the best of my ability and to serve my writer's heart.

That's what you need for your writing - to learn how to be present, learn how to be calm. So take that nap, do that meditation.

I can't stand it when people say, "If you're writing a novel, you should read this and that." Because it's like giving someone another person's prescription. How do you know that's what they need?

We have all this courage as writers, but then there's this fear.

You were given that pain and that vision because you have something to do with it.