I Start With An Image, Then I

Writing Short Stories Was Kind Of Like I Was Cheating The Whole Time, In Some Way. I Went Back And Forth Between Writing The Novels And Sort Of Sneaking Out To Work On Stories Occasionally. These Stories Were Written Over The Last 10 Years Or So, As I Was Taking Breaks From The Novels I've Written.

I've Had A Lot Of Different Lives. I Was Adopted, I Grew Up In Nebraska, And Then I Went To Northwestern... Then I Had This Really Extraordinary, Different Life Than My Parents.

There's A Lot Of Effort Expended Once You Begin To Completely Trash Your Life. Sometimes, Writing Feels Like This To Me.

I Can't Understand How People Can Settle For Having Just One Life. I Remember We Were In English Class And We Were Talking About That Poem By - That One Guy. David Frost. 'two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood-' You Know This Poem, Right? 'two Roads Diverged In A Yellow Wood, And Sorry I Could Not Travel Both And Be One Traveler, Long I Stood And Looked Down One As Far As I Could, To Where It Bent In The Undergrowth-" "i Loved That Poem. But I Remember Thinking To Myself: Why? How Come You Can't Travel Both? That Seemed Really Unfair To Me.

You Can't Count On Notoriety Lasting Very Long, And There's No Way To Predict Whether Anyone Will Care About Your Books Or You In Three Years, Let Alone Ten Or Twenty.