My primary lesson, however, was that I'm a solo writer, happiest when I'm making all the executive decisions. I've always been willing to rise or fall on my own merits.

I've never written about my husband, Steve, or any of my children because I know them all too well. I see them in all their complexities which makes them impossible to render on the printed page.

grief is an illness I can't recover from.

To many women mistake a man's hostility for wit and his silence for depth.

The character of Rosie is based on a woman who used to live in the same apartment building I lived in many years ago. She's taken on a life of her own, of course.

Writing is a process and you must trust the process! Fear and anxiety are part of that process along with the enthusaism and the good days and the joy and the passion and the great hopes you have for a book. But when you run into problems, when you get stuck or scared, you must trust that that is part of how a book comes to pass, and what you need to do is get very still and quiet because Self will tell you how to get out of a hole you've dug for yourself.

Grieving is like being ill. You think the entire world revolves around you and it doesn't.