I Had This Idea That I Could

But I Always Need To Identify With A Character To Write About Him Or Her - And By "identify," I Mean See The World Through That Person's Eyes And Have A Strong Sense Of The Inner Logic Of Their Acts And Decisions, Wacky Or Wrongheaded Though They Might Be. In That Sense, I Think There's Some Of Me In All Of Them.

I'm A Dogged Person. I Respond To Adversity With A Steely Resistance.

Nineteen Eighty Is Almost Here, Thank God. The Hippies Are Getting Old, They Blew Their Brains On Acid And Now They're Begging On Street Corners All Over San Francisco. Their Hair Is Tangled And Their Bare Feet Are Thick And Gray As Shoes. We're Sick Of Them.

Because You Can't Write Habitually And Well All The Time, You Have To Be Willing To Write Badly. That's How You Get The Regularity That Enables You To Be Present For The Good Stuff.

I Don't Think That All Girls Seek The Influence Of Older Men, But I Think Girls Whose Fathers Are Absent Or Recessed From Their Lives Often Do. And Honestly, When I Was Growing Up, Fathers Were Generally Pretty Absent From Their Children's Lives. We Didn't See A Lot Of Them. That May Be Something That Has Genuinely Changed For The Better In Our Culture: Men Are More Present For Their Children Now That More Women Are Working.