A Conclusion Is Simply The Place Where

A Novel Requires A Certain Kind Of World-building And Also A Certain Kind Of Closure, Ultimately. Whereas With A Short Story You Have This Sense That There Are Hinges That The Reader Doesn't See.

I Know A Lot Of People Don't Listen To Music When They're Writing Because It Distracts Them, But For Me It's Almost A Way To Get Into The Self-hypnotic State That I Need To Be In To Write.

Imaginative Empathy Is One Of The Great Gifts That Humans Have, And It Means That We Can Live More Than One Life. We Can Picture What It Would Be Like From Another Perspective.

It Doesn't Matter What You Do. In The End, You Are Going To Be Judged, And All The Times That You're Not At Your Most Dignified Are The Ones That Will Be Recalled In All Their Vivid, Heartbreaking Detail. And Then Of Course These Things Will Be Distorted And Exaggerated And Replayed Over And Over, Until Eventually They Turn Into The Essence Of You: Your Cartoon.

Here Is The Door Of My Mom's House, Well-remembered Childhood Portal. Here Is The Yard, And A Set Of Wires That Runs From The House To A Wooden Pole, And Some Fat Birds Sitting Together On The Wires, Five Of Them Lined Up Like Beads On An Abacus.