Identity Issues Are Hardwired Into The Way

Sometimes He Thinks That If He Could Only Trace The Path Of His Life Carefully Enough, Everything Would Become Clear. The Ways That He Screwed Up Would Make Sense. He Closes His Eyes Tightly. His Life Wasn't Always A Mistake, He Thinks, And He Breathes Uncertainly For Awhile, Trying To Find A Pathway Into Unconsciousness, Into Sleep.

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.

I Never Could Figure Out How Those People Like Bukowski Could Be Both Carousers And Writers At The Same Time, Because To Me Writing Takes As Much Destructive Energy As It Takes To Be A Really Good Professional Drunk.

There Are So Many People We Could Become, And We Leave Such A Trail Of Bodies Through Our Teens And Twenties That It's Hard To Tell Which One Is Us. How Many Versions Do We Abandon Over The Years?

I'm Working With Fragments A Lot Of The Time And The Connective Tissue Isn't There Yet. I Think Of It The Way Comics Work. You Have A Block Here And A Block Here, And There's This White Space In Between. Somehow Your Mind Makes The Leap To Connect Those Two Blocks. Finding A Way To Trick Your Mind Into Connecting Those Blocks Is One Of The Fun Things For Me About Writing. You Can Have Those Leaps That Will Emerge Into Something, If You're Lucky.