Formula: Second Draft = First Draft Minus

There Are A Great Many Ways To Commit Suicide You Know.

Fault Always Lies In The Same Place: With Him Weak Enough To Lay Blame.

The Good Folks Mostly Win, Courage Usually Triumphs Over Fear, The Family Dog Hardly Ever Contracts Rabies: These Are Things I Knew At Twenty-five, And Things I Still Know Now, At The Age Of 25 X 2. But I Know Something Else As Well: There's A Place In Most Of Us Where The Rain Is Pretty Much Constant, The Shadows Are Always Long, And The Woods Are Full Of Monsters. It Is Good To Have A Voice In Which The Terrors Of Such A Place Can Be Articulated And Its Geography Partially Described, Without Denying The Sunshine And Clarity That Fill So Much Of Our Ordinary Lives. (viii)

I Would Say Plotting Is The Most Difficult Thing For Me. Characterization Is Only Hard Because Sometimes I Feel I Get So Interested In It That I Want To Talk Too Much About The Characters And That Slows The Story Down. So I Say, "hey, People Want To Find Out What's Going To Happen Next, They Don't Want To Listen To You Spout Off About This Or That Person." But I Think Even The Bad Guy Deserves To Tell His Side Of The Story.

Schizoid Behavior Is A Pretty Common Thing In Children. It's Accepted, Because All We Adults Have This Unspoken Agreement That Children Are Lunatics.