My mother has always been the point I calibrated myself against. In knowing where she was, I could always locate myself, as well. These months she'd been gone, I felt like I'd been floating, loose and boundaryless, but now that I knew where she was, I kept waiting for a kind of certainty to kick in. It didn't. Instead, I was more unsure than ever, stuck between this new life and the one I'd left behind.

Usually when I finish the draft of a book, I'm sure I'll never write another one. I'm just that tired and sick of myself. But then another idea starts percolating. It usually begins with the narrator's name, then some idea that intrigues me about her life or situation. I try to ignore it as long as I can, because I know when I start writing, I'll be right back into it, every single day. But eventually, I just have to. It's a compulsion!

Maybe it was just part of growing up with someone. Once you have a rhythm and stay with it long enough, it's not hard to find again.

Morning would come before we knew it. It always did. But we still had the night, and for now, we were together, so I just closed my eyes and drank it all in.

Sometimes, you get things right the first time. Others, the second. But the third time, they say, is the charm.

I think part of the problem sometimes is that there's so much happening in my books, to whittle it down into a single script is hard.

But it was important to simply be sought, even if you didn‟t ever want to be found.