I Suppose All Writers Worry About The

You Can Be Interested In A Jane Smiley Novel Whether Or Not Anyone Says A Word. She Enters Into Her Characters Thoughts With Great Understanding And Depth.

I Get And Read An Enormous Number Of First Novels.

A Lot Of My Characters In All Of My Books Have A Self-destructive Urge. They'll Do Precisely The Thing That They Know Is Wrong, Take A Perverse Delight In Doing The Wrong Thing.

My God, He Couldn't Help Thinking, How Terrible It Is To Be That Age, To Have Emotions So Near The Surface That The Slightest Turbulence Causes Them To Boil Over. That, Very Simply, Was What Adulthood Must Be All About -- Acquiring The Skill To Bury Things More Deeply. Out Of Sight And, Whenever Possible, Out Of Mind.

When I Start Getting Close To The End Of A Novel, Something Registers In The Back Of My Mind For The Next Novel, So That I Usually Don't Write, Or Take Notes. And I Certainly Don't Begin. I Just Allow Things To Percolate For A While.