I Feel Like Crying, So I Must

Every Time I Try To Set Something In Chicago, I Get Intimidated By 'augie March.' It's Easy To Set Something In Indianapolis - We Don't Have 'augie March' Here. But I Love Writing About Chicago, And I Love Being There And Imagining Lives In Chicago. I Hope To Set Something There In The Future, But It's Intimidating.

I Really Think That Reading Is Just As Important As Writing When You're Trying To Be A Writer Because It's The Only Apprenticeship We Have, It's The Only Way Of Learning How To Write A Story.

Colin Emphatically Pushed The Book Cover Shut When He Finished Reading. "did You Like It?" His Dad Asked. "yup," Colin Said. He Liked All Books, Because He Liked The Mere Act Of Reading, The Magic Of Turning Scratches On A Page Into Words Inside His Head.

I Knew That Time Would Now Pass For Me Differently Than It Would For Him - That I, Like Everyone In That Room, Would Go On Accumulating Loves And Losses While He Would Not. And For Me, That Was The Final And Truly Unbearable Tragedy: Like All The Innumerable Dead, He'd Once And For All Been Demoted From Haunted To Haunter.

The Punch Connected, But (1) Colin Forgot To Close His Fist, So He Was Slapping Not Hitting, And (2) Instead Of Slapping Toc, He Ended Up Slapping Hassan Flush Across The Cheek, Whereupon Hassan Finally Succeeded In Falling Down.