It's Not Easy To Make Friends When

She Would Always Feel This Wild Girl Was The Truest Of Any Of The People She Had Already Been: Adored Daughter, Bourgeois Priss, Rebel, Runaway, Dope-fiend San Francisco Hippie; Or All The People She Would Later Be: Mother, Nurse, Religious Fanatic, Prematurely Old Woman. Vivienne Was A Human Onion, And When I Came Home At Twenty Eight Years Old On The Day The Monster Died, I Was Afraid That The Baptist Freak She Had Peeled Down To Was Her True, Acrid, Tear-inducing Core.

If There's A Black Cat That Crosses The Street In My Path, I Will Turn Around And Walk 20 Minutes Out Of My Way To Not Cross It.

Even The Presence Of My Kids Cannot, During Those Writing Hours, Disturb Me. Unless There's A Bone Sticking Out Of Their Arm, I'm Not Interested.

Our Human Impulse Is To Control Everything, But Fiction Seems To Me To Be About Allowing An Element Of Mystery Into The Text.

I Try Not To Think Too Much Or Be Too Impatient, And Let The Back Of My Brain Do Its Mysterious Work.