I have an idea of how the book will finish up, but it very rarely finishes up the way that I think it's going to.

You can't deny laughter; when it comes, it plops down in your favorite chair and stays as long as it wants.

There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good stories seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky.

But I think there are a set of experiences that turn a potential writer into a working writer, and then there are places in your life were you start to recognize what you want to do.

Pray for rain all you like, but dig a well as you do it.

She ran out of her marriage the way a woman can run out of a pair of sandals when she decides to let go and really dash.

The most important things to remember about back story are that (a) everyone has a history and (b) most of it isn’t very interesting.