I Was Brought Up In A Community,

Human Beings Are Remarkable - At What We Can Learn To Live With. If We Couldn't Get Strong From What We Lose, And What We Miss, And What We Want And Can't Have, Then We Couldn't Ever Get Strong Enough, Could We? What Else Makes Us Strong?

I Always Begin With A Character Or Characters, And Then Try To Think Up As Much Action For Them As Possible.

Before I Began The Cider House Rules, I Thought I Wanted To Write About A Father-son Relationship That Was Closer, More Conflicted, And Ultimately More Loving, Than Most. Then I Began To Think Of A Relationship Between An Old Orphanage Director And An Unadoptable Orphan - A Kid Who Goes Out Into The World And Fails And Keeps Coming Back, So That The Old Guy Ends Up With Someone He's Got To Keep.

I'm A Worst-case Scenario Person. I'm Only Interested In A Story Because I Kind Of Go, Like A Magnet, To The Worst Thing That Can Happen.

I've Always Been A Fan Of The 19th Century Novel, Of The Novel That Is Plotted, Character-driven, And Where The Passage Of Time Is Almost As Central To The Novel As A Major Minor Character, The Passage Of Time And Its Effect On The Characters In The Story.