There were people who lied for gain, people who lied from pain, people who lied simply because the concept of telling the truth was utterly alien to them . . . and then there were people who lied because they were waiting for it to be time to tell the truth.

What do you really want to know? Am I sorry for what I did? There's not a day goes by I don't feel regret. Not because I'm in here, but because you think I should be. I look back on the way I was. A young, stupid kid that committed that terrible crime. I want to talk to him. I want to try to talk some sense to him. Tell him the way things are. But I can't. That kid's long gone, and this old man is all that's left.

I work until beer o'clock.

Don't wait for the muse. As I've said, he's a hardheaded guy who's not susceptible to a lot of creative fluttering. This isn't the Ouija board or the spirit-world we're talking about here, but just another job like laying pipe or driving long-haul trucks. Your job is to make sure the muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon. or seven 'til three. If he does know, I assure you that sooner or later he'll start showing up.

and then woe is you, Pauly. Woe to the max.

I want to write about spiders. To me, this is the one theme that cuts right across and scares just about everybody. Spiders, to me, are just about the most horrible, awful things that I can think about. I think everyone is afraid of spiders.

Dead fields under a November sky, scattered rose petals brown and turning up at the edges, empty pools scummed with algae, rot, decomposition, dust.